Following in the footsteps of one of the world’s literary heroes, speaker Oliver Lewis, set out to visit all the places that inspired and shaped George Orwell, beginning in Northern India where Orwell was born in 1903 and ending at his final resting place in Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire. Over three years, he travelled from Wigan to Catalonia, Paris to Motihari, Marrakesh to Eton, and in each location explored both how Orwell experienced the place, and how the place now remembers him as a literary icon.

Oliver Lewis is a travel writer and historian. He specialises in the ‘literary travelogue’, first with ‘The Orwell Tour’ (2023), following in the footsteps of George Orwell; the second with the developmental ‘Steinbeck Odyssey’, which applies the same methodology to the life and work of John Steinbeck. In a separate capacity he is almost at the end of a Doctorate in Modern British History at the University of Oxford, where he researches the privatisation of British Rail ‘as a case study in Public Policy Failure’,. He teaches undergraduate history and politics at Oxford and at Sciences Po, Paris, where he resides each spring. He grew up in South Northamptonshire, was educated at Magdalen College School (Brackley), the London School of Economics, and King’s College London, and lives in Montgomery, Powys.

The Autumnfest is nothing if not varied! Join us for a great day. Why not come early and join us for lunch at Ecgwin’s Club’? Menu will be circulated to attendees beforehand so that menu choices can be pre-ordered on the day.