George Orwell' s admirers each seem to admire him for a different reason. Some revere his politics, though those change according to which passage in his depressingly short life one focuses upon.

Others laud his abilities as a novelist. For some, he is a great essayist - my own favourite is his 1952 memoir of prep school, Such, Such Were the Joys. For others, the content of his writing is secondary to his command of the English language; he has a justified reputation as the finest writer of English prose of the last century.

There is much more to Orwell, though, than comes under those headings. Another important aspect is considered in Robert Colls's superb analysis of his writings, George Orwell: English Rebel. As the title suggests, Colls considers Orwell' s relationship with his country: and what a roller-coaster ride it was.

England was the land of Orwell' s paternal ancestry but not of his birth: that was India, where his father worked in the Opium Department of the Civil Service. His mother had grown up in Burma, with a French father.

In some ways England was Orwell' s adoptive parent, and it took decades for the son to come around to his new family. Born Eric Blair in 1903, Orwell was a bright boy, and won a scholarship to Eton.