In conjunction with the Orwell Society, we are hosting an in person meeting at the Tyneside Irish Centre, Friday 25 March at 7.30pm when Sylvia Topp will be in conversation with North East History editor, Rosie Serdiville about her recently published biography of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Eileen: The Making of George Orwell. This meeting will also be livestreamed (see below).

Eileen was born in South Shields in 1905, married George Orwell in 1936 and sadly died in a Newcastle hospital at the relatively young age of forty.

Sylvia Topp has worked in publishing since college, starting as a copy writer on medical journals, then moving to freelancing editing at a major literary publishing houses. 

Sylvia joined the staff at The Soho Weekly News and later The Village Voice, before finishing her publishing career at Vanity Fair. Eileen is her first book. She lives in Kingston, Ontario. 

The meeting will be livestreamed.