Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Sonia Mary
Brownell (25 August 1918-11 December 1980) was the second and last wife
of writer George Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair. She was
also known as Sonia Blair or Sonia Orwell. Brownell was born in
Calcutta, as the daughter of a British colonial official. When she was
six, she was sent to the Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton (now
Woldingham School). She left at 17, and after learning French in
Switzerland, took a secretarial course. Orwell first met her when she
worked as an assistant for Cyril Connolly, a friend of his from Eton
College, at the literary magazine Horizon. After the death of his first
wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy, Orwell became desperately lonely, and on 13
October 1949 married Brownell, three months before his death from
tuberculosis.
