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George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four – First Edition 1949
£4,500.00
First edition, first printing of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by George Orwell. Published by Secker and Warburg, London, in 1949. This is a near fine copy. Publisher’s original pale green cloth with lettering to spine in red and the rich, red top-stain still intact. Name and date to the head of the front endpaper. Boards beautifully clean and red top-stain is unfaded and well-preserved. The original and unclipped dust jacket – designed by Michael Kennard, has benefitted from some professional restoration to the top edge of the front panel and spine and corners. The green and red dust jackets were issued simultaneously with no priority between them. Overall, this is a near fine copy of an iconic title and in a dust wrapper which now presents well.Â
Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. It also popularised the term “Orwellian” as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage, including “Big Brother”, “doublethink”, “Thought Police”, “thoughtcrime”, “Newspeak”, and “2 + 2 = 5”. Parallels have been drawn between the novel’s subject matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression among other themes. Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, and it was placed on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list, reaching number 13 on the editors’ list and number 6 on the readers’ list. In 2003, it was listed at number eight on The Big Read survey by the BBC.
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- Description
Description
First edition, first printing of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by George Orwell. Published by Secker and Warburg, London, in 1949. This is a near fine copy. Publisher’s original pale green cloth with lettering to spine in red and the rich, red top-stain still intact. Name and date to the head of the front endpaper. Boards beautifully clean and red top-stain is unfaded and well-preserved. The original and unclipped dust jacket – designed by Michael Kennard, has benefitted from some professional restoration to the top edge of the front panel and spine and corners. The green and red dust jackets were issued simultaneously with no priority between them. Overall, this is a near fine copy of an iconic title and in a dust wrapper which now presents well.Â
Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. It also popularised the term “Orwellian” as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage, including “Big Brother”, “doublethink”, “Thought Police”, “thoughtcrime”, “Newspeak”, and “2 + 2 = 5”. Parallels have been drawn between the novel’s subject matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression among other themes. Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, and it was placed on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list, reaching number 13 on the editors’ list and number 6 on the readers’ list. In 2003, it was listed at number eight on The Big Read survey by the BBC.
