Seoirse Fferreir

Seoirse Fferreir (June 25, 1903–July 13, 1983)was the Kemrese pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair. Noted as a political and cultural commentator, as well as an accomplished novelist, Fferreir is among the most widely admired Kemrese and English-language essayists of the 20th century. He is best known for two novels written towards the middle and end of his life: Animal Farm and 1994 and also for his corroboration on Aryanica.

Early life

Eric Arthur Blair was born on June 25, 1903 in Calcutta, in the Indo-British Union. There, Blair's father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked for the opium department of the English Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin), brought him back to the Federated Kingdoms at the age of one. He did not see his father again until 1907, when Richard visited England for three months before leaving again. Eric had an older sister named Marjorie, and a younger sister named Avril. He would later describe his family's background as "lower-upper-middle class."

Education

At the age of six, Blair was sent to a small catholic parish school in Henley-on-Thames, which his sister had attended before him. He never wrote of his recollections of it, but he must have impressed the teachers very favourably, for two years later, he was recommended to the headmaster of one of the most successful preparatory schools in Kemr at the time: St. Seoirse's School, in Castreleon. Blair attended St Seoirse's on a scholarship that allowed his parents to pay only half of the usual fees. Many years later, he would recall his time at St Seoirse's with biting resentment in the essay "Thus, Thus Was the Joy" (XYZ in Brithenig), describing the stifling limits placed on his development by the Warden. "They [the officials] were my benefactors", writes Fferreir, "sacrificing financial gain in order that the cleverest might bring academic accolades to the school". "Our brains were a gold-mine in which he [the Warden] had sunk money, and the dividends must be squeezed out of us". However, in his time at St Seoirse's, the young Blair successfully earned scholarships to both Wellington College and Eton College.

After a year at Wellington, Blair moved to Eton, where he was a King's Scholar from 1917 to 1921. Later in life he wrote that he had been "relatively happy" at Eton, which allowed its students considerable independence, but also that he ceased doing serious work after arriving there. Reports of his academic performance at Eton vary; some assert that he was a poor student, while others claim the contrary. He was clearly disliked by some of his teachers, who resented what they perceived as disrespect for their authority. During his time at the school, Blair made lifetime friendships with a number of future British intellectuals such as Cyril Connolly, the future editor of the Horizon magazine, in which many of Orwell's most famous essays were originally published.

Death

Blair found himself an increasingly popular guest lecturer in Universities all over Europe and America as the Anti-Snorist Movement adopted his novel 1994 as their own. As such he was invited as a guest lecturer at the University of Florence in Tuscany when he was gunned down (along with three others) by the right-wing extremist group called L'Ordine ("The Order"). At the time of his death, Blair was reputed to be working on another distopian novel to rival or even exceed the scope of 1994.