The apartment of Nellie Limouzin, George Orwell's aunt, and her partner Eugène Adam. This is where he stayed when he first reached Paris in 1928 — before the rented room, the kitchens and the poverty that Down and Out in Paris and London is made of.
Down and Out in Paris and London opens with George Orwell already poor, already in a cheap hotel on a loud street, already inside the world the book describes. That is a decision about where to start a story, not a record of how he arrived.
He arrived here. His aunt Nellie Limouzin lived at 14 avenue de Corbéra in the twelfth arrondissement with her partner Eugène Adam, and Orwell stayed with them when he first reached Paris in 1928. Only afterwards did he move into the cheap hotel on the rue du Pot de Fer that becomes the rue du Coq d'Or of the book.
It matters because it changes what the poverty in the book is. Orwell was not a man with nowhere to go. He had family in the city, and he had a way out of the worst of it available to him throughout — a fact the book keeps quiet and which readers have argued about ever since. The argument is worth having with the address in front of you.
None of that makes the reporting false. What he describes of the kitchens and the wards is corroborated, and being able to leave does not make seventeen hours in a basement any shorter. But it does mean the book is written by someone who chose the descent and could have ended it, and the avenue de Corbéra is where that choice was available.
The building standing here now is the one he knew: it dates from 1925, three years before he came. It is a private apartment block with nothing to mark it.
Orwell reaches Paris and stays with his aunt Nellie Limouzin and Eugène Adam at 14 avenue de Corbéra.
He moves out to a cheap hotel on the rue du Pot de Fer in the fifth arrondissement.
The kitchen work, the hospital and the destitution that make up the book's Paris half.
Down and Out in Paris and London is published, beginning with him already poor.
With his aunt Nellie Limouzin and her partner Eugène Adam at 14 avenue de Corbéra in the 12th arrondissement, in 1928. He moved out afterwards to the cheap hotel on the rue du Pot de Fer that appears in Down and Out in Paris and London as the rue du Coq d'Or.
Because the book starts with him already poor. Orwell chose to begin inside the world he wanted to describe rather than explain how he got there. The omission is a shaping decision, and it is the reason readers have argued ever since about how destitute he actually was.
It complicates it rather than discrediting it. What Orwell describes of the kitchens, the wards and the pawnshops is corroborated, and having somewhere to go does not shorten a seventeen-hour shift. But it does mean the descent was chosen and could have been ended, which is worth knowing while reading it.
Only the building, from the street. It is a private apartment block with no plaque. The one thing worth knowing is that the fabric is genuine — it was built in 1925, three years before Orwell stayed there.
Lived here · 1928
Orwell's first Paris address — the flat of his aunt Nellie Limouzin and her partner Eugène Adam, where he stayed on arriving in 1928 before moving to the rented room on the rue du Pot de Fer. Down and Out begins after this, with him already poor.
The Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
