Orwell's letters sell for £84,000

George Orwell lived in Southwold after returning from Burma

A cache of letters from the author George Orwell has sold at auction for £84,000.

They document the time in the early 1930s when Orwell was staying with his parents in Southwold, Suffolk, after he returned from Burma.

The letters are to his friends in the town, Eleanor Jacques and Dennis Collings, and one subject he discusses is the writing of his first two books.

They were auctioned by Bonhams Auctioneers in London.

Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 and is best-known for writing Animal Farm, published in 1945, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, published four years later.

Dennis Collings, son of the Blair family doctor, and Eleanor Jacques, the Blair's next-door-neighbour, were two of Orwell's closest friends during the years he lived in Southwold.

The letters are written to friends Eleanor Jacques and Dennis Collings

Although Eleanor Jacques and Orwell were close for a time, she married Collings in 1934.

Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950.

David Park from Bonhams said earlier that the auction was a major literary event as the author's letters rarely came on to the market.

"They are very interesting in terms of his friendships with both Dennis Collings and Eleanor - who Orwell was clearly very fond of," he said.

"Also he's writing about trying to get his early works published and that's of great importance as his own account of his struggle to get his works into print."