ABSTRACT
This chapter examines biographies of Orwell and relevant critical texts, combined with observations from site visits to the remote house 'Barnhill' which he rented from late May 1946 towards the end of his life. As is evident in his Diaries, for Orwell Jura was a sensuous island. A few days before Nineteen Eighty-Four's arduous completion, the bedridden writer paused in his death-defying typing to stare through a windowpane and observe a 'Beautiful, windless day, sea like glass'. Often described as the most rugged of the Southern Hebrides, Jura's interior landscape is mountainous or covered in blanket bogs, with sheltered areas that run along the island's east coast. Orwell's move to Scotland was all the more unpredictable given the 'Scots, GO's dislike of', seven indexed entries of which appeared in Bowker's 2003 biography. Of the island's wondrous nature Orwell's diaries retain only glimpses of unique encounters, often hidden among his workman-like entries cataloguing his efforts at crofting.
