The Race to 1984

On Christmas Eve 1947, recently-widowed George Orwell leaves his writer’s retreat on the Hebridean Isle of Jura and is admitted to a hospital near Glasgow with advanced tuberculosis. But despite his rapidly failing health and constant fear of political assassination, he has a vitally-important work to finish: perhaps the most significant novel of the twentieth century, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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Based on real events, The Race to 1984 uses Orwell’s gift for humour and plain-speaking to uncover fascinating new details of his complex relationship with the brilliant women who inspired his work, including his first wife Eileen, who died tragically young, and the untold romantic story of the Scottish doctor’s wife who, against her husband’s orders, smuggled Orwell secret supplies of writing materials to help him complete his never-more-relevant masterpiece.