After returning from France, Orwell's lungs began troubling him again; he was showing signs of tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium in Kent, where he convalesced for four months before leaving for Marrakech, Morocco — a spot chosen because of the supposed recuperative effects of its climate. In Marrakech, he wrote another novel, Coming Up for Air (1939) and then returned, in 1939, to London. World War II erupted and Orwell continued writing reviews, essays, and broadcasts to India from the BBC. Non-fiction works from this period include Inside the Whale (1940) and The Lion and the Unicorn (1941).
In 1943, Orwell finished writing the book that would seal his reputation as an insightful and cautious political thinker: Animal Farm. Dubbed "A Fairy Story," Orwell's short but powerful novel examines the ways in which a farm of oppressed and exploited animals rebel against their human master, only to eventually replace the system they initially wanted to supplant. The book is also a thinly disguised retelling of the 1917 Russian Revolution from Orwell's point-of-view. Because of this, the book was rejected by several publishers on the grounds that it was too controversial to publish at a time when the Soviets were at war with Germany — the wartime enemy of England. While negotiations on Animal Farm were still pending, Orwell and Eileen adopted a son, Richard Horatio, in 1944. Animal Farm was finally published on August 17, 1945, sold more than 250,000 copies, and received tremendously flattering reviews. However, with this great success came sorrow, when Eileen died during a hysterectomy this same year.
In 1947, Orwell moved to Jura, an island off the coast of Scotland. Here he composed the novel which proved to be his most enduring work: Nineteen Eighty-Four. Published in 1949, the novel evokes a nightmarish future where the citizens of "Oceania" are totally controlled by the Party, a political machine symbolized by the mythical figure Big Brother. Orwell's lungs, however, were getting worse. Just before his death, he married the young editorial assistant Sonia Brownwell in a University Hospital bedside ceremony on October 13, 1949. Orwell died of tuberculosis on January 21, 1950, but his contributions to political literature — best seen in the fact that the adjective "Orwellian" has come into the language — remain.
