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About
Published in 1948, this cautionary tale follows a lone protagonist who struggles under the rule of a repressive totalitarian government. Set in a future version of England, called Airstrip One, the novel is famous for its imagined language that conjures a cruelly cynical authoritarian regime. One of the most popular novels in the English language, it is part political thriller and part science fiction, and it established the word Orwellian to describe official deception, unwarranted surveillance, and revisionist history by the state.
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Reviews
"A profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book…Orwell's theory of power is developed brilliantly."
New Yorker
"1984 is a remarkable book; as a virtuoso literary performance it has a sustained brilliance that has rarely been matched in other works of its genre…It is as timely as the label on a poison bottle."
New York Herald Tribune
"Before one has finished reading the nearly bemused first page, it is evident that this is fiction of another order, and presently one makes the distinctly unpleasant discovery that it is not to be satire at all."
New York Times Book Review