Product Description

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #256 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded. Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political allegory, Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame.

Customer Reviews

Ever Relevant
1984 is one of those brilliant books that forces you to continually reassess your life and everything in it. This is the second time I have read it and I am noticing different things this time round. It seems to gain relevance at a startling speed, giving the narrative a sort of spooky prophetic feel.

Everyone should read 1984 at least one in their life. Its vital literature for anyone who has any interest at all in the human condition or current affairs...

Yes its a bit depressing but at the same time it offers hope. mad I know but true. read it and you'll understand what I mean!

A dystopian classic
When Orwell wrote 1984, he was near the end of his life, suffering from tuberculosis and, for most of the time, living in isolation on the remote Scottish island of Jura. What perfect preparation for him to create one of the bleakest and most accurate accounts of the abuse of power by modern totalitarian states. The simple, direct prose style hits you square in the face and leaves you reeling. The world in 1984 is divided into three totalitarian power blocks, which are constantly in conflict. The novel's main character, Winston Smith, lives in one these powers, Oceania. He is an intellectual and a Party member who works in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to re-write political history to accord with the current approved views of the Party on all aspects of society. Winston has become disillusioned with the Party and commits a terrible crime by falling in love with a woman called Julia. This relationship is forbidden, because it serves no utilitarian purpose. In 1984, personal life has been abolished and subjugated to the will of the Party. Winston - under torture - is forced to denounce Julia and reaffirm his love for the Party, as represented by the personality cult of Big Brother.

Orwell hits so many targets with such unerring accuracy that it would be tedious to list them...but here goes: communism and fascism sharing the same totalitarian ambitions; censorship and manipulation of the media to serve political ends; the use of personality cults to induce party loyalty; the creation of external enemies to distract from the shortcomings of the regime; romantic love as an act of defiance in the face of an inhuman society; the use of brainwashing and torture to bring `deviationists' back into line; the loss of the right to a private life and personal privacy; ubiquitous and routine surveillance of ordinary citizens, ostensibly to protect their security. OK, I'll stop now, but you get the picture: this is a hugely ambitious book about profound issues that are still relevant for every person alive today. It is also that rare jewel among ambitious books in that it succeeds in saying something meaningful and convincing about every one of its themes.

This book will still be a best-seller when our grandchildren become politically active. It falls firmly into the category of `books that everyone should read at least once'.

Review by Tony Judge, author of Sirocco Express (ISBN: 978-1409204466 )

Amazing!
This book is a fantastic classic, and Orwell's writing style is so good, I couldn't put it down.
It's amazing, and I think everyone should read it once in their lifetime.