Eileen O’Shaughnessy and George Orwell. [The Orwell Society]

HE may be down, but he’s definitely not out of mind. A new book has been accused of damaging the marital reputation of one of Britain’s greatest writers, former Hampstead resident George Orwell.

Author Anne Funder, who lives in Australia, in her colourful and intriguing new book Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, believes there’s much material, including letters, suggesting that Orwell, tall, thin and gangly, was apparently not the easiest person to get on with, let alone live with.

He was also said to be a misogynist, a bit of a cheat where women were concerned and could be unkind to his first wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy.

The book has already caused a big storm in the literary world, with praise and some criticism.

The Times reviewer Kathryn Hughes calls the book “rattlingly fierce”. She describes Orwell as a St George figure but adds: “So what a shock to learn that St George was actually a bit of a shit.”

Orwell and Eileen’s adopted son, Richard Blair, whose comments featured in the Daily Mail, slams many of the claims in the book. His biggest criticism is that Funder “weaves her own personal life into the story and allows herself to imagine what is going on inside Eileen’s head”. He thinks Funder is being “disingenuous”.

Funder writes that she is a big fan of Orwell’s books. “His work is precious to me. I worried he might risk being ‘cancelled’ by the story I’m telling. Though she (Eileen), of course has been cancelled already by patriarchy.”

Back in 1935, in the days before he became famous, Orwell and wife Eileen shared a modest upper floor flat at 77 Parliament Hill, directly opposite Hampstead Heath. He worked part-time at nearby Booklovers’ Corner bookshop, at the junction of Pond Street and South End Green.

Funder maintains that highly talented, Oxford-educated Eileen played an important part in Orwell’s life – loving him, influencing and inspiring him, typing his manuscripts and not forgetting doing all the chores around the house, including having to clean out a cesspit. But she has been mostly ignored, both by Orwell in his writing and by his male biographers.

Now under the spotlight in Funder’s book, Eileen assumes a more impressive form. She was a sought-after editor, who had studied English at Oxford and psychology at University College London.

Anne Funder

Orwell went to Eton but not university.

Along with Orwell, who fought on the front line, Eileen volunteered to work in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. She was based in the office of the Independent Labour Party, who coordinated the arrival of British military volunteers in Spain.

Eileen also helped with supply, communications and banking operations and worked in the propaganda department, producing newspaper and radio programmes.

On top of that she paid visits to her husband on the front, bringing him English tea, chocolate, and cigars.

She may have helped inspire Nineteen Eighty-Four, but very little if anything has been written about her exploits.

We also learn from Funder that Eileen cared for Orwell through his bouts of bronchitis, and when he was badly injured on the front line.

But at the height of the marriage, Funder writes, there had been frostiness between the couple.

In one letter, unearthed in 2005, Eileen writes to her friend Norah, saying she and Orwell had been arguing “continuously and bitterly” since they got married. She managed to joke that she thought “I’d save time and just write one letter to everyone when the murder or separation had been accomplished.”

Former Islington resident, Jason Crimp, from the Orwell Society, launched in 2011, was critical of the book.

“Funder is a good writer but attempting to understand the complexities of other people’s marriages is in many ways an improbable pursuit. We are on the other side of shut doors.”

Mr Crimp, an account manager for a legal book firm in Lincolns Inn Fields, added: “Nuances and understandings can only be guessed at, the bargaining and agreements on which each marriage is built are made in low voices.”

Orwell and Eileen lived in many places but there’s a belief that their heart was always in Camden and Islington.

A plaque outside the Parliament Hill flat commemorates Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty Four, (written in 1949) which deals with the totalitarian figure Big Brother.

The late journalist Gerald Isaaman organised the plaque in the year 1984, when he was editor of the Ham & High newspaper. The then Labour leader, the late Michael Foot MP, supported him. Gerald later became a leading writer for the CNJ.

Orwell’s book Keep the Aspidistra Flying, written in 1934, was regarded as a symbol of the stuffiness of middle-class society in Hampstead. Then there’s Down and Out in London and Paris, partly inspired by Orwell living, as part of his research, at Camden Town’s famous hostel for the homeless, Arlington House.

In 1944 Orwell, Eileen and recently adopted child Richard, lived at Canonbury Square. They had been forced out of their previous home in Mortimer Crescent, St John’s Wood, after it was almost destroyed by a German bomb.

Fortunately they were out at the time but Orwell had to dig among the ruins to find the manuscript for Animal Farm.

• Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life. By Anna Funder, Viking books, £20