Ellen Kate Limouzin

{{Infobox person

| other_names = Elaine Limouzin
EKL
Helene Limouzin-Adam

| birth_date = 27 October 1870

| birth_place = Moulmein, Burma

| baptised = 21 December 1870

| death_date = 21 June 1950

| education = Bedford High School

| occupation = suffragette, socialist, music hall performer, writer and Esperanto speaker

| organization = Actresses' Franchise League, Fabian Society, Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda

| spouse = Eugène Lanti (m. 1931, died 1947)

| relatives = George Orwell (nephew)

}}

Ellen Kate Limouzin (27 October 1870 – 21 June 1950) was a British suffragette, socialist, music hall performer, writer and Esperanto speaker. She was the aunt of the author George Orwell and was also known as "Nellie" or "Hélène."

Early life

Limouzin was born in 1870 in Moulmein, Burma, where she spent her childhood. She was half-French and half-English.{{Cite book |last=Karp |first=Masha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TfevEAAAQBAJ&dq=Ellen+Kate+Limouzin&pg=PA4 |title=George Orwell and Russia |date=2023-05-18 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78831-714-6 |pages=4-5, 7-8 |language=en}} Limouzin's younger sister Ida Mabel Blair ({{Nee|Limouzin}}) became the mother of Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell.{{Cite web |last=Duby |first=Peter |title=Elaine Limouzin |url=https://theatricalia.com/person/jfs/elaine-limouzin |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=Theatricalia}} After moving from Burma to Britain, Limouzin and her sisters attended Bedford High School from September 1886.{{Cite web |title=Orwell & Bedford |url=https://www.darcymoore.net/2024/05/25/orwell-bedford/ |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=Darcy Moore |language=en-AU}}

Activism and career in Britain

Limouzin has been described as "eccentric," "bohemian" and "radical".{{Cite web |last=Newsinger |first=John |date=2024-06-26 |title=2+2=5: George Orwell and Soviet Communism |url=https://isj.org.uk/225-george-orwell-and-soviet-communism/ |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=International Socialism |language=en-GB}}

In London, she ran a literary salon, and when new editions of two novels were published in 1916 by Oxford University Press (Cranford and Scenes of Clerical Life), Limouzin provided introductory notes.{{Cite web |title=Orwell's Family: Aunt Nellie |url=https://www.darcymoore.net/2024/01/14/orwells-family-aunt-nellie/ |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=Darcy Moore |language=en-AU}} She additionally had a career as an actress in the music halls,{{Cite journal |last=Moore |first=Darcy |date=2020-01-01 |title=Orwell's Aunt Nellie |url=https://www.academia.edu/42790259 |journal=George Orwell Studies |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=30–44}} taking the stage name "Elaine Limouzin." She performed in vaudeville entertainments and comedic feminist plays.{{Cite book |last=Meyers |first=Jeffrey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eUQ1Z12trIEC&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA50 |title=Orwell: Life and Art |date=2010-10-01 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-09022-6 |pages=50 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Cockin |first=Katharine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_AvYgEACAAJ |title=Women and Theatre in the Age of Suffrage: The Pioneer Players 1911-1925 |date=2001 |publisher=Palgrave |isbn=978-0-312-23764-6 |language=en}}

Limouzin developed friendships with many English leftists, writers and campaigners, such as Edith Nesbit, Conrad Noel, Emmeline Pankhurst,{{Cite book |last1=Kean |first1=Hilda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=48AhAQAAIAAJ&q=nellie+limouzin |title=Seeing History: Public History in Britain Now |last2=Martin |first2=Paul |last3=Morgan |first3=Sally J. |date=2000 |publisher=Francis Boutle |isbn=978-0-9532388-9-7 |pages=42–43 |language=en}} Sylvia Pankhurst, Francis Westrope and Myfanwy Westrope.{{Cite web |title=At Bonhams: Orwell's Copy of "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" Presented to a Bookseller |url=https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/bonhams-orwells-copy-keep-aspidistra-flying-presented-bookseller |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=Fine Books Magazine |language=en}} There is an undated photo of her with the Pankhurst sisters, taken c. 1906–1909 at the Embankment in London.

Limouzin supported the campaign for women's enfranchisement and attended women's suffrage meetings. She chained herself to railings during suffrage protests and was arrested and imprisoned for her militant activism. She was involved in the Actresses' Franchise League, the women's suffrage organisation open to any woman who was or had been in the theatrical profession. She was also a member of the Fabian Society.{{Cite book |last=Schor |first=Esther |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N_u5BwAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PT220 |title=Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language |date=2016-10-04 |publisher=Macmillan + ORM |isbn=978-1-4299-4341-3 |language=en}}{{Page needed|date=February 2025}}

Esperanto

Limouzin learned Esperanto, the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. She joined the leftist ananational organisation Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda (SAT, English: World Anational Association) as soon as it formed in 1921. She met the association founder and fellow Esperantist Eugène Adam, better known as Eugène Lanti,{{Cite book |last=McElvenny |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pZiSDwAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA105 |title=Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism: C.K. Ogden and His Contemporaries |date=2018-01-09 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-2504-9 |pages=105 |language=en}} when they both attended meetings of the Communist Faction during the 3rd SAT Congress in Kassel, Germany in 1923. Like Limouzin, he was a committed communist,Borsboom, Edouard. (1976). Vivo de Lanti. (In Esperanto) Paris, Sennaciecca asocio tutmonda. p. 23. and he had been a revolutionary in Petrograd during the Russian Revolution in 1917.{{Cite book |last=Newsinger |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rURaCwAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA21 |title=Orwell's Politics |date=1999-01-17 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-333-98360-7 |pages=21 |language=en}} The couple were living together as companions by 1926,Markov, Anne-Sophie. (1999) Le Mouvement International des Travailleurs Espėrantistes 1918 – 1939. (in French). p. 113–114.{{Cite book |last=Edwards |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mZkeAAAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA94 |title=Sociolinguistics: A Very Short Introduction |date=2013-07-25 |publisher=OUP USA |isbn=978-0-19-985861-3 |pages=94 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Biografio de Lanti, la sennaciisto |url=http://www.delbarrio.eu/sennaciismo.htm |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=www.delbarrio.eu |language=Esperanto}} and married in 1931 in Paris. Whilst living in Paris with Lanti during the period of les Années folles, Limouzin contributed to radical political journals, wrote letters to newspapers and wrote articles in Esperanto using the pseudonym E.K.L.

In early 1928, Limouzin's nephew George Orwell also moved to live in Paris. She encouraged his literary career,{{Cite book |last=McGoogan |first=Ken |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wfcSEQAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PT69 |title=Shadows of Tyranny: Defending Democracy in an Age of Dictatorship |date=2024-08-24 |publisher=Douglas & McIntyre |isbn=978-1-77162-425-1 |language=en}} giving him social support, financial support and meals whilst he wrote.{{Cite book |last=Connelly |first=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_x0DwAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA8 |title=George Orwell: A Literary Companion |date=2018-11-09 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-6677-8 |pages=8 |language=en}} Orwell met members of the French intelligenzia through her, including Henri Barbusse,{{Cite web |date=2020-02-08 |title=Re-examining? |url=https://orwellsociety.com/re-examining/ |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=The Orwell Society |language=en-GB}} with these contacts leading to Orwell's first published writings.{{Cite book |last=Ingle |first=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Br1-AgAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PT96 |title=The Social and Political Thought of George Orwell: A Reassessment |date=2006-04-18 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-24776-9 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last1=Rodden |first1=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5wkquqRsevIC&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA12 |title=The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell |last2=Rossi |first2=John |date=2012-06-07 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-76923-5 |pages=12 |language=en}} When Orwell went to visit his aunt and her future husband Lanti, the couple conversed in Esperanto at home as Lanti refused to speak French.{{Cite book |last1=Garvia |first1=Roberto |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hcd0CAAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA1 |title=Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language |last2=Garvía |first2=Roberto |date=2015-04-22 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9127-8 |pages=1 |language=en}} Orwell suffered as a non-speaker of Esperanto and developed a strong dislike for the language. Some Orwell scholars have suggested that this is why he included elements of Esperanto in the "Newspeak" language he created in his anti-totalitarian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.{{Cite web |title=Esperanto literature: Translated and Original Literature, Fiction and Non-fiction, in the international language Esperanto |url=https://www.esperanto.boutique/ |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=Esperanto Boutique}}{{Cite book |last=Borjian |first=Maryam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rgAqDwAAQBAJ&dq=nellie+limouzin&pg=PA155 |title=Language and Globalization: An Autoethnographic Approach |date=2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-315-39461-9 |pages=155 |language=en}}Wicher, Andrzej. (2020). "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347670060_A_comparison_between_the_concept_of_Newspeak_in_George_Orwell's_Nineteen_Eighty-Four_A_Novel_and_the_way_of_thinking_about_language_in_CS_Lewis's_That_Hideous_Strength A comparison between the concept of Newspeak in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel and the way of thinking about language in C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength.]" Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica. 58. op. 477-498. DOI 10.18778/1505-9057.58.25.

When Orwell moved back to England, Limouzin helped her nephew to find part time work in Booklovers' Corner in Hampstead, a second hand bookshop owned by her friends the Westropes.

Death

Limouzin's husband Lanti died by suicide in Mexico in 1947, leaving a note asking his survivors to notify the French consul and to send 750 pesos to Limouzin "as my legal wife."{{Page needed|date=February 2025}}

Limouzin died of a haemorrhage into a tumour of her brain in 1950.