Introduction. The first serious Orwell biography was a pamphlet issued in 1953:  George Orwell, by Henry Thomas Tom Hopkinson, was published by Longmans, Green & Co., for the British Council and the National Book League. John Masefield, the writer and poet laureate founded The National Book League (NBL) in 1945, as an offshoot of … Continue reading Hopkinson, Hulton and the Herald