ABSTRACT
Rebel Orwell was not only the first face to emerge prominently in the development of Orwell's reputation, but also seems to have been the dominant self-image of Blair-Orwell himself. "Don Quixote" has become a watchword in Orwell's reception history, and some of Quixote's popularity and ascribed characteristics have become features of Orwell's "Quixotic" reputation. Pritchett describes Orwell as "a John the Baptist who has returned from the wilderness." All the efforts of Cervantes' wandering knight errant to champion the world's underdogs—whatever military skill and nobility of spirit he may exhibit in the course of his adventures—are destined to fail. Orwell was the rebel par excellence, "a permanent outsider" to every group, even to his circles of friends, as Julian Symons has observed. Orwell's life of independence arguably paved the way for his posthumous lives of independence. In his observer obituary, Arthur Koestler summed up Orwell's life as "A Rebel's Progress."
