Learn English – What does “of late he had fallen on evil days” mean in this sentence

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A sentence from George Orwell's Animal Farm:

In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days.

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What does of in "of late" mean, and how is it used here?
What does "had fallen on evil days" mean? Is it an idiom?
What does the whole sentence mean?

I noticed "had been a capable farmer" and "had fallen" are using the same tense, but I guess by using "but of late", there should be some differences between the two timings.

Best Answer

To expand on the answer given by Ankit:

of late = recently

had fallen on evil days = had been having problems, or difficulties. I would not consider it an idiom myself, but perhaps it was a more common usage in the author's era.

To re-word the sentence in an attempt to make its meaning clearer:

Mr. Jones had always been a hard master, but he had also always been a capable farmer until recently, when some problems developed that he was unable to resolve satisfactorily.

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