LONDON — George Orwell, the author who coined the phrase “Big Brother is watching you,”was himself the subject of intense surveillance by the British Secret Services, according to official documents declassified today.

The author of “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” which envisages a day when every person’s movements are scrutinized by a totalitarian state, was closely monitored amid concerns that he was a prominent member of the communist movement. Every aspect of his life came under the microscope during the 1930s and ’40s. The scrutiny even extended to Eileen, his wife, who had to be vetted before she was allowed to take up a post with the Ministry of Food.

Files released by the National Archives show that in 1942, Scotland Yard was paying close attention to Orwell, who was then working at the British Broadcasting Corp.

A report on January 20 by a Sergeant Ewing of Special Branch charted the career of Eric Blair — Orwell’s real name — from 1927, the year of his resignation from the Burma police. “[He] drifted to Paris and London and has written a few books on his experiences, under the name of Orwell. He was practically penniless when he found work with the BBC,” Sergeant Ewing wrote.

The Eton-educated Orwell, who considered himself an anarchist in the 1920s, used his experiences of roughing it for the basis of his first book, “Down and Out in Paris and London.”

Sergeant Ewing wrote: “This man has advanced communist views, and several of his Indian friends say that they have often seen him at communist meetings. He dresses in bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours.”

However, the report, countersigned by a superintendent, was treated with scorn by the Security Service. The minute of a telephone call in February 1942 shows a Security Service officer, W. Ogilvie, challenging the Special Branch report and highlighting inconsistencies with Orwell’s published views.

Mr. Ogilvie added: “It is evident from his recent writings … that he does not hold with the Communist Party, nor they with him.”