1984 NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

by GEORGE ORWELL

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New softcover book. 333 pages, with an afterword by Erich Fromm, written 1961

Nineteen Eighty-Four - 1984 - by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair), is a 1949 English novel about life under a futuristic authoritarian regime in the year 1984. It tells the story of Winston Smith, a functionary at the Ministry of Truth, whose work consists of editing historical accounts to fit the government's policies. Smith is degraded and psychologically tortured after he is arrested by the Thought Police under the instruction of the totalitarian government of Oceania.

The book has major significance for its vision of an all-knowing government which uses pervasive and constant surveillance of the populace, insidious and blatant propaganda, and brutal control over its citizens. The book had a substantial impact both in literature and on the perception of public surveillance, inspiring such terms as 'Big Brother' and 'Orwellian'.

Thought Police. Big Brother. Orwellian. These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984. The story of one man's nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory, 1984 is a prophetic, haunting tale.

More relevant than ever before, 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable-the destruction of truth, freedom, and individuality.

Although the novel has been banned or challenged in some countries, it is, along with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, among the most famous literary representations of dystopia. In 2005, Time magazine listed it among the hundred best English-language novels published since 1923.

About the Author

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English journalist, political essayist and novelist who wrote under the pseudonym George Orwell.

His writing is marked by concise descriptions of social conditions and events and a contempt for all types of authority. He is most famous for two novels critical of totalitarianism, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, a satire of Stalinism. During the majority of his career, Orwell was best known for his journalism, in essays, reviews, columns in newspapers and magazines and in his books of reportage: Down and Out in Paris and London (describing a period of poverty in these cities), The Road to Wigan Pier (describing the living conditions of the poor in northern England, and the class divide generally) and Homage to Catalonia.

Modern readers are more often introduced to Orwell as a novelist, particularly through his enormously successful titles Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former is often thought to reflect developments in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution; the latter, life under totalitarian rule. Elements in Nineteen Eighty-Four satirize "opium for the masses" found as central-character Winston Smith does (witness the newspapers filled with "sex, sport, and astrology" which the Ministry of Truth peddles to the proles). Nineteen Eighty-Four is often compared to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; both are powerful dystopian novels warning of a future world filled with state control, the former was written later and considers perpetual war preparation in a nuclear age; the latter is more optimistic.

1984 by George Orwell