Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life

Written by Anna Funder and published in 2023, Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life combines the genres of biography, fiction, and literary scholarship to present a portrait of Eileen Blair (née O’Shaughnessy), George Orwell’s first wife. Funder explores Eileen’s life while simultaneously commenting on the invisibility of domestic labor for women in both the past and the present. In the process of revealing Eileen’s life and character, Funder combines historical information with fictionalized scenes and snippets from her own life. Funder is primarily a non-fiction author whose background is in human rights law, and she has also written a successful novel called All That I Am. Wifedom won the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction in 2024.

This guide refers to the 2023 Alfred A. Knopf hardcover edition.

Content Warning: Both the source material and this guide contain descriptions of and references to rape and sexual assault. The source material also contains graphic descriptions of war-related violence.

Summary

The beginning of the book details Eileen’s efforts to write a letter to her friend Norah, then alternates between Orwell and Eileen’s courtship and early marriage and Funder’s reasons for writing the book. Funder discovered Eileen and her seemingly systematic erasure by Orwell and his biographers in the process of reading all of Orwell’s nonfiction works. Funder encounters a single paragraph that is unsatisfactorily explained by any biographer, and this passage compels her to examine Eileen’s identity and conduct a broader investigation of women’s domestic labor in general.

Eileen was born into a middle-class Anglo-Irish family and pursued both literature and psychology in college. Orwell spent his early life in Burma, was educated as an adolescent in England, and later returned to Burma, where he observed colonial racism firsthand and began to be disenchanted with political power.

Eileen and Orwell first meet at a dinner party, and he immediately insists that he will marry her. Despite the misgivings of Eileen’s friends, she marries Orwell in June of 1936, and they live together in Wallington in a cottage owned by Orwell’s Aunt Nellie. Eileen performs almost all of the domestic tasks, in addition to editing and typesetting Orwell’s writing.

The second section tells the story of Eileen’s significant role in the Spanish Civil War. Although Orwell wrote Homage to Catalonia in order to describe his experience of the war, he either omits or downplays Eileen’s role, and his biographers follow suit. Far from simply acting as a nurse or secretary, Eileen is integral in the creation of propaganda supporting the war effort for the republican soldiers. Stalinist spies target her and watch her movements, adding extreme risk to her task of arranging for the escape of high-ranking Independent Labor Party members from Spain. It is Eileen’s intelligence and bravery that guarantee safe passage for her and Orwell, allowing them both to leave the country.

After fleeing Spain and safely returning to England, both Eileen and Orwell begin to experience serious health problems. Eileen struggles with cysts that burst and cause massive bleeding and pain—cysts that are discovered to be cancer. Meanwhile, Orwell suffers from coughing fits that lead to lung hemorrhages. His symptoms are definitely caused by tuberculosis. When World War II breaks out, Eileen’s brother, Laurence, is killed in action, causing Eileen to experience a deep depression. Although she is struggling with her illness, she gets a job and supports herself and Orwell for two years while they live in London. Orwell finally manages to get a full-time job at the BBC, but his work is punctuated by multiple affairs with secretaries, artists, writers, and even Eileen’s close friends. Eileen wants children, but Orwell is infertile. Without children, Eileen is conscripted to work a few months after leaving her previous job. Despite her own health problems and her clear grief over Laurence, Eileen and Orwell weather the bombings and see each other through the worst of the war. Now in their third flat, they collaborate on Animal Farm, which has clear markers of Eileen’s influence.

They finally complete Animal Farm, even though they must overcome many challenges to get it published. To make matters worse, Eileen has been increasingly sick with cancer. Now, Orwell suggests adopting a son, so they adopt a baby named Richard. Taking care of the infant brings Eileen back to life. She loves being his mother, and her family and friends remark on how happy she and Orwell seem after adopting Richard. However, the cancer has become dire, so Eileen schedules a hysterectomy. She opts for the less expensive option, possibly out of concern that Orwell will not approve of spending too much money. However, she has been weakened by years of anemia and dies during surgery while Orwell is out of the country.

Struggling with his grief, Orwell returns to England and attempts to raise his son with the help of a hired nurse. Because he is struggling to write 1984, he brings Richard on two trips to Jura, Scotland, with his sister Avril. On the first trip he brings Richard’s nurse, Susan, but his sister Avril alienates her, and she quits her job as Richard’s nurse. On the second trip, friends accompany Orwell and help to maintain his property as well as his financial well-being. He finishes 1984, but his health has declined drastically. Orwell eventually marries Sonia Brownwell, but before they can travel together to Switzerland, Orwell dies of a massive hemorrhage. The conclusion of the book is written from the perspective of Eileen’s best friend, Norah, with a return to the letter that began the book.