1984 - (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics) by George Orwell (Hardcover)

About the Book

While the totalitarianism that inspired 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' has passed into oblivion, his cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate, and its ability to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade.

Book Synopsis

A deluxe hardcover edition of 1984: one of the most celebrated novels of the twentieth century, Orwell's cautionary tale of a man trapped under the gaze of an authoritarian state feels more relevant now than ever before.

Winston Smith spends his days rewriting history to fit the narrative that his government wants citizens to believe. But as the gap between the propaganda he writes and the reality he lives proves too much for Winston to swallow, he begins to seek some form of escape. His desperate struggle to free himself from an all-encompassing, tyrannical state illuminates the tendencies apparent in every modern society, and makes vivid the universal predicament of the individual.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

From the Back Cover

While the totalitarianism that provoked George Orwell into writing 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' seems to be passing into oblivion, his harrowing, cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate, and its relevance and power to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade.

Review Quotes

"Nineteen Eighty-Four 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

"A profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book...Orwell's theory of power is developed brilliantly." -The New Yorker

"A book that goes through the reader like an east wind, cracking the skin...Such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing, and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down." -V. S. Pritchett

"Orwell' s novel escorts us so quietly, so directly, and so dramatically from our own day to the fate which may be ours in the future, that the experience is a blood-chilling one." -Saturday Review

About the Author

George Orwell (1903-1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and was a member of the Home Guard and a writer for the BBC during World War II. He is the author of many works of non-fiction and fiction.