Since its publication more than 70 years ago, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has been one of the most influential novels of the modern age, and the world we live in is often described as an Orwellian one. Seeking the origins of the book, D.J. Taylor dives deep into Orwell's life to chart his earlier writings and key moments in his youth at a boarding school, whose strict and charismatic headmaster shaped the idea of Big Brother. Taylor also travels to the Scottish island where an ailing Orwell struggled to finish the novel, and examines its legacy as a tool to understand our language, politics, and government.