AustLit

'Eric Blair died for want of a typist. Self-exiled to a remote Scottish island and hollowed out by tuberculosis, he quailed at the prospect of typing a clean manuscript copy of his just-completed novel. Despite an SOS to his publishers, no typist eventuated. If he were to meet his end-of-1948 deadline, he’d have to do the job himself. And so he did, propped up in bed with the typewriter on a tea tray. But three days after typing “THE END”, Blair suffered his final collapse.' (Introduction)