George Orwell’s jail time confirmed by unseen court records

Author’s wilful arrest for drunkenness in order to experience prison while researching Down and Out in Paris and London had been questioned, but research confirms truth

The balance between fact and fiction in George Orwell’s investigations of poverty has been questioned ever since an anonymous reviewer of his 1933 memoir, Down and Out in Paris and London, wondered “if the author was really down and out”. But now an academic has dug up court records which put one of Orwell’s experiments on firmer ground: the author’s arrest for being “drunk and incapable” in the East End of London while posing as a fish porter named Edward Burton.

Orwell’s unpublished 1932 essay Clink describes a colourful 48 hours in custody in December 1931 after drinking “four or five pints” and most of a bottle of whisky. His intention was to be arrested, “in order to get a taste of prison and to bring himself closer to the tramps and small-time villains with whom he mingled”, according to biographer Gordon Bowker.

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