Written 75 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...
This 75th Anniversary Edition includes:• A New Introduction by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of
Take My Hand, winner of the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Fiction
• A New Afterword by Sandra Newman, author of
Julia: A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984
“
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...
A startling and haunting novel,
1984 creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.
• Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read •
George Orwell (pseudonym for Eric Blair [1903-50]) was born in Bengal and educated at Eton; after service with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, he returned to Europe to earn his living penning novels and essays. He was essentially a political writer who focused his attention on his own times, a man of intense feelings and intense hates. An opponent of totalitarianism, he served in the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Besides his classic
Animal Farm, his works include a novel based on his experiences as a colonial policeman,
Burmese Days, two firsthand studies of poverty,
Down and Out in Paris and London and
The Road to Wigan Pier, an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War,
Homage to Catalonia; and the extraordinary novel of political prophecy whose title became part of our language,
1984.
