Whether through necessity or just to collect material, and probably both, he undertook casual work as a dishwasher in restaurants. Whoever reduced Orwell to destitution did him a good turn his final ten weeks in Paris sowed the seed of his first published book. In a later account, he said the theft was the work of a young woman whom he had picked up and brought back with him it has been submitted that 'consideration for his parents' sensibilities would have required the suppression of this misadventure'. The thief was probably not the young Italian described in Down and Out. Orwell fell seriously ill in March 1929 and shortly afterwards had money stolen from the lodging house. Orwell's Paris street, in the 5th arrondissement: 'tall old-fashioned windows and dark grey leaded roofs not far from the École Normale Supérieure-earlier in the twenties, Hemingway had lived only 500 yards (460 m) from Orwell's street Elliot Paul was then still living in his own 'narrow street', the Rue de la Huchette, in the same arrondissement down by the river near the Place Saint-Michel and once, at the Deux Magots in 1928, Orwell thought he saw James Joyce.' He led an active social life, worked on his novels and had several articles published in avant-garde journals. Orwell's aunt Nellie Limouzin also lived in Paris and gave him social and, when necessary, financial support.

Following the Russian Revolution, there was a large Russian emigre community in Paris.

Scott Fitzgerald had lived in the same area. American writers like Ernest Hemingway and F. In spring of 1928 he moved to Paris and lived at 6 Rue du Pot de Fer in the Latin Quarter, a bohemian quarter with a cosmopolitan flavour. While contributing to various journals, he undertook investigative tramping expeditions in and around London, collecting material for use in ' The Spike', his first published essay, and for the latter half of Down and Out in Paris and London. After giving up his post as a policeman in Burma to become a writer, Orwell moved to rooms in Portobello Road, London at the end of 1927 when he was 24.

Down and out in paris and london book