been a long time, but I enjoyed that Crick bio of Orwell mentioned upthread: def a study, with speculation and evidence clearly presented---also mentions stuff I didn't know, such as Down and Out... being fiction, although I don't remember how much of it might have been based on personal experience, but to some extent influenced by Jack London's People of the Abyss(which is non-fiction, or at least there was an edition with his pix, via concealed camera, I think---sold a copy of it in a used book store, to a woman whose son was always competing w friends re rare book finds). Also London's The Iron Heel was a forerunner of 1984, though the Orwell treatment was distinctly his.
Some of his old schoolmates got a bit impatient later, something like, "You couldn't ask him for a light without getting a lecture on production of matches and the plight of workers in match factories." One old boy deplored the description of their alma mater in "Such, Such Were The Joys", but then took it further (interviewed by Crick, I think), volunteering that it was not terribly uncommon to see a lad vomiting into his breakfast bowl.
― dow, Saturday, 11 November 2017 18:16 (six years ago) link