Eric & Us
The Postscript Edition

Author: Jacintha Buddicom and Dione Venables
ISBN 978-0-9553708-1-6
Genre Memoir
Publisher: Finlay Publisher
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Eric & Us was first published in 1974 and the new Edition, which now includes an index and postscript, is the only existing root source of information concerning Orwell's formative years and was written by his closest friend of the period 1914 – 1922. The Buddicom family lived in Shiplake-on-Thames before, during and after the First World War. The Blair family lived next door for two years before returning to nearby Henley-on-Thames, and Eric Blair and Jacintha Buddicom became inseparable friends during their teenage years. Eric later took the name of George Orwell, once he had begun to make a success of his writing.

In the 1970s Jacintha was asked to contribute an article covering the years of Orwell's literary growth, to which she and her family had made such a positive contribution. Having submitted the article (which was then heavily edited), she realized that there was much more that should be said on the subject. Eric & Us was published by Leslie Frewin in 1974.

This slender book (195 pages), out of print for 25 years and virtually unknown except by those who write Orwellian biographies, is the only first-hand source of information concerning Eric Blair's everyday occupations and preferences. It was written in conjunction with Eric's younger sister Avril Dunn, and contains a newly written Postscript by Jacintha's cousin, writer Dione Venables. The Postscript covers ground previously unknown to biographers and students of Orwell, and holds the key to the hidden agenda in Eric & Us .

Finlay Publisher invites you to enjoy an Edwardian era when innocence and keen young minds could absorb and learn without the pressures of modern technology which fashion the lives of our children today. Dione Venables' Postscript will illustrate how Orwell, constantly using the personalities and their opposites of the Buddicoms in his characters, retained the imprint of Jacintha in his psyche for the rest of his life.