B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S U M M E R 2 0 2 3 "QUITE SIMPLY A NOVEL WHICH HAS CHANGED THE WORLD": ORWELL’S 1984 32. ORWELL, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker and Warburg, 1949. Octavo, original green cloth, original green-and-white dust jacket. $13,500 First edition of Orwell’s powerful and in!uential dystopia. "No other dystopian novel has received the critical acclaim or had the wide-ranging in"uence that 1984 has" (Books of the Century, 161). Written while Orwell su#ered severely from tuberculosis and published shortly before the disease claimed his life, the novel is a work "of hectic, devilish, claustrophobic intensity… nightmarish in the telling" (Clute & Nicholls, 896). Writing of Orwell, Christopher Hitchens said, "'the three great subjects of the 20th century were imperialism, fascism and Stalinism… Orwell got all three right" (New York Times). It was this aptitude for politics that enabled Orwell to create a cautionary tale at once remarkably profound and widely accessible. "It is possible to say that the ghastly future Orwell foretold has not come about simply because he foretold it: we were warned in time" (Burgess, 99 Novels, 46). For its enrichment of the English language—bequeathing such words as "doublethink," "Newspeak," and, of course, "Big Brother"—and its warning about the dire consequences of unchecked power in any hands, 1984 remains a literary landmark. "It is quite simply a novel which has changed the world" (Pringle, 100 Best Science Fiction Novels 1). First-edition dust jacket issued in both green and red versions, no priority established. Fenwick A12a. Connolly 99. Anatomy of Wonder II:838. 100 Most In!uential Books 93. Book with mild sunning to extremities. Dust jacket with light creasing to extremities, hairline crease to front panel and faint abrasion along spine, though generally clean and bright. An extremely good copy. 32
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