George Orwell

Orwell washed dishes in Paris, tramped in Kent, was shot through the throat fighting in Spain, and wrote about all of it plainly. "Animal Farm" was turned down by four publishers, one of whom thought a story about talking animals would not sell.

He finished "Nineteen Eighty-Four" on Jura while dying of tuberculosis and lived seven months longer. He asked for a Church of England burial in the nearest country churchyard; his stone gives only his real name, his dates, and nothing else.