George Orwell is out of copyright - now the fun begins

For 70 years the famous author's literary estate has kept control of the way his work is adapted for the screen. That's about to change.

Scene from a 1956 film adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Jake Kerridge

Jan 14, 2021 – 12.01am

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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.

The Telegraph London