17 Facts About Fredric Warburg

Fredric Warburg is best known for his association with the author George Orwell.

Fredric Warburg is an important figure in the history and study of Cold War propaganda due to his work with Orwell's widow Sonia Orwell in a collaboration with the Information Research Department, a secret propaganda wing of the British Foreign Office, which helped to increase the fame of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Fredric Warburg was involved in the sale of the movie rights to Animal Farm to the American Central Intelligence Agency.

Fredric Warburg was born on 27 November 1898 in Paddington, London, to John Cimon Fredric Warburg, a photographer, and his wife Violet Amalia, both of Jewish descent.

At the age of nine, Fredric Warburg was sent to Wilkinson's boys' preparatory school.

Fredric Warburg recalled his first two years there as "among the most hateful of my life".

Fredric Warburg found refuge and solace in his love of books.

In summer 1917, Fredric Warburg was commissioned to serve as an officer in the Royal Artillery.

Fredric Warburg was stationed in the Ypres area until the end of the war.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1932, and on 21 January 1933 Fredric Warburg married the painter and designer Pamela Bryer.

Fredric Warburg died of heart failure at University College Hospital, London, on 25 May 1981, at the age of 82.

The firm published all of Orwell's books from then on, and he and Fredric Warburg became intimate friends.

In 1940, Warburg introduced Orwell to another of his firm's authors, T R Fyvel, and between the three of them they planned the creation of Searchlight Books.

In 1961, Fredric Warburg was made a director of the Heinemann group, a post he retained until his retirement in 1971.

Fredric Warburg published two volumes of autobiography: An Occupation for Gentlemen and All Authors are Equal.

In 1952 Warburg became a member of the committee of the Society for Cultural Freedom, an organisation established, in the words of Warburg's friend T R Fyvel, to "promote western culture and defend it against the Communist culture of the East".

Fredric Warburg was offered the chance to plead guilty and escape with a minimal fine, but opted for trial by jury at the Old Bailey.