WITH WRAPAROUND BAND
Nineteen Eighty Four
Secker & Warburg, 1949.
First edition. Original green cloth with red lettering on the spine in the preferred maroon dustwrapper, complete with scarce Evening Standard wraparound band. A fine copy with an erased inscription to the front endpaper in a very good dustwrapper indeed, which has only moderate fading to the spine (much less than usual), minor wear to the spine ends and corners and a couple of small patches of wear through the front foredge. Overall a clean, bright copy of a particularly susceptible book, rarely seen in such good condition.
One of the highlights and great prophetic writings of the twentieth century. Orwell began writing Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1945, knowing that he would need to change publisher in order to see it in print. As he had found with Animal Farm, Orwell's novels were now opposed to Gollancz's political principles, and so it was the firm of Secker & Warburg (also the publishers of Animal Farm) who took on the book. The book was due to be finished in early 1948, though when the time came Orwell told his publishers
"It is just a ghastly mess as it stands, but the idea is so good that I could not possibly abandon it."
It was published in June 1949 and by October had sold over 22,000 copies. Such phrases as 'Double Think', 'Newspeak' and 'Big Brother' coined in the book have since become common parlance and the novel a cornerstone of dystopian literature.
Fenwick A12a; Connolly 99; Burgess p46
Stock ID: 32190
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