George Orwell died from tuberculosis in January 1950, aged 46. Writers who can combine such originality of thought with such clarity of expression are rare enough that even now it's difficult not to be grief-struck by his lamentably premature demise.
But taking consolation where we can, we can celebrate the fact that in the month of the anniversary of his death comes the expiry of the copyright on his books – something that won't happen for decades with the work of such longer-lived contemporaries as Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene.
