Most Popular Books by George Orwell

George Orwell''s dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century, making famous Big Brother, newspeak and Room 101. ''Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past''

Nineteen Eighty-Four revealed George Orwell as one of the twentieth century’s greatest mythmakers. While the totalitarian system that provoked him into writing it has since passed into oblivion, his harrowing cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate: its relevance and power to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade. In Winston Smith’s desperate struggle to free himself from an all-encompassing, malevolent state, Orwell zeroed in on tendencies apparent in every modern society, and made vivid the universal predicament of the individual. (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) From the Hardcover edition.

1984 or Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, is a dystopian novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949. 1984 is one of George Orwell''s most powerful politically charged novels, a beautifully crafted warning against the dangers of a totalitarian society, and one of the most famous novels in the dystopian genre. Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling party in London whose every move is monitored by telescreens. Everywhere Winston goes, the party''s omniscient leader, Big Brother, watches him. This is an important novel not only for its stark warning against abusive authority (and its somewhat ironic contribution to modern television content), but also for its insights into the power of manipulating language, history, and the psychology of fear and control. These issues are perhaps even more pertinent today than when Orwell penned his novel.

George Orwell was a novelist, essayist and critic best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism. Animal Farm was published in 1945 when Orwell, a democratic socialist, was angered at Joseph Stalin for betraying the ideas of the Russian Revolution. In fact, that is the basis of Orwell''s book. The characters in Animal Farm resemble significant people that impacted the Russian Revolution. These characters act similarly to the real people and actions that were done in the past. Through this book, George Orwell exposes Stalin''s true nature and evils using a corrupt pig named Napoleon that eventually dictates the farm. Animal Farm is one of the most influential political texts ever written.

Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell''s nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff''s attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell''s prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written. --Amazon.com.

"1984 - the novel marking the end of communism." George Orwell''s 1984 revolves around Winston Smith, an office worker who performs censorship duties in Oceania''s Ministry of Truth as a small cog in the wheel of a monstrous state apparatus. For years, doubts have been gnawing at him about the legitimacy of the system in which even a blink of the eye can cost him his life. The novel begins with the first step towards putting this initially purely intellectual resistance into action: Winston opens a diary. He subsequently falls in love with a young female colleague, and together they begin a love affair that, in the dictatorship that invades every aspect of life, is in itself an act of high treason. Even though they have different views on the society they live in, they are united by the rejection of its narrow moral corset and the desire for individual freedom and, not least, a right to love and feel. While Winston understands HOW the machinery of tyranny works, he does not understand WHY the massive effort of its surveillance and repressive apparatus is undertaken. When they decide to seek contact with the underground opposition and eventually end up in the hands of the repression apparatus of the state, Winston learns the true background of Oceania''s society. Until his death, George Orwell was a convinced socialist - all the greater was the effect his work, published in 1949, had on the political left of the time. On the political left, the Soviet Union was seen as the realisation of Marx''s ideas, the workers'' paradise that would free the enslaved masses from their shackles. Orwell was one of the few leftists of his time who dared to shake this narrative. Under the impression of the undeniable terror of Stalinist rule and its cynical, opportunistic cooperation with fascist and capitalist foreign countries, he criticised the hypocrisy and inhumanities of the real communism with Animal Farm and 1984.

This Excellent Collection brings together Orwell''s longer, major books and a fine selection of shorter pieces. With great originality and wit Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defence of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell''s Books created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move and entertain. This Books created and collected in George Orwell''s Most important Works illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of the XX century - a man who elevated political writing to an art. This Collection included: · 1984 · ANIMAL FARM · A CLERGYMAN''S DAUGHTER · BURMESE DAYS · COMING UP FOR AIR · DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON · HOMAGE TO CATALONIA · KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING · LOOKING BACK ON THE SPANISH WAR · THE LION AND THE UNICORN · THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. ''A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.'' — Irish Times

An insurance salesman desperately tries to recapture his youth in this “charming” comic novel by the iconic British author (The New York Times). George Bowling is having a crisis. Not a loud, unsightly one, but a small, desperate one. His days are occupied by an unfulfilling insurance job; his nights spent worrying about his mortgage, marriage, expanding waistline, and what seems to be a certain prospect of World War II looming on the horizon. So when George unexpectedly hits it big on a lucky horse, he spends the windfall on the only thing he ever knew to make him happy: his childhood. George travels back to his boyhood home of Lower Binfield, swimming in vivid memories of worry-free bliss, sights, sounds, smells, and emotions of a pre-war world. But while the idyllic village in George’s head may not have seen battle, the reality may be more sobering than he is prepared to deal with. Penned with Orwell’s trademark insight and passion, Coming Up for Air is an elegiac look at memory and desire at a desperate moment in England’s history.

A compilation of personal letters creates an autobiography of the author of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" through his correspondence with other literary luminaries, including T.S. Eliot and Henry Miller, as well as letters to complete strangers.

Plongez en VO dans ce chef-d''oeuvre absolu. Pour vous aider, des traductions en marge vous permettront de bien comprendre le texte original. Ce texte en VO fait partie des chefs-d''oeuvre de la littérature anglo-saxonne.

globally known for his works: Animal Farm; 1984; Down and Out in Paris and London; Burmese Days; Keep the Aspidistra Flying, among others. Down and Out in Paris and London is a memoir of the most defining period of the author''s life and his first work. It was upon its publication in 1933 that the pseudonym George Orwell was born, at the suggestion of his editor. After working as a British Empire police officer in Burma, George Orwell decided to understand the life, ways, and thoughts of the poor population and went to live as one of them. Orwell lived in destitution for a long time before finding work as a dishwasher in a hotel, and all the experiences he had in both cities resulted in this precious book. In Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell discusses his times living in poverty in such a realistic and moving way that it is impossible to put the book down before finishing it.

A new edition of Orwell''s early work, showing the origins of his commitment to social justice. A new edition with a new introduction, this is a deeply personal record of Orwell''s growing despair and disillusionment with the Spanish Civil War, gathering themes he would later explore to perfection in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Having joined the international leftist forces in Barcelona, Orwell grew frustrated by the repressive totalitarianism of Stalin''s brand of communism.

George Orwell is a major figure in twentieth-century literature. The author of Down and Out in Paris and London, Nineteen Eighty-four, and Animal Farm, he published ten books and two collections of essays during his lifetime - but in terms of actual words, produced much more than seems possible for someone who died at the age of forty-six and was often struggling against poverty and ill health. His essays, letters, and journalism are among the most memorable, lucid, and intelligent ever written, the work of a master craftsman and a brilliant mind. Taken as a whole they form an essential collection, and read in toto and sequentially, they provide a remarkably literary self-portrait of an engaged, and consistently engaging, writer.

"Orwell''s modern hell" - The New Yorker Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell''s chilling prophecy about the future. "Arguably the greatest dystopian novel ever written ... a book that everyone should read not just once, but again, every 10 years. It certainly deserves a reread right now." - CNN

Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"), and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".

This title brings George Orwell''s classic satire Animal Farm together with the author''s other works exploring the nature of politics and the Second World War. His topics include: corrupt political language, the oppressive British Empire, and a wry review of Mein Kampf .

ReviewTrue Agony of a Socialist Orwell is obviously angry at the way Socialism has been distorted by Stalin. Using Animal characters as symbols Orwell honestly mocks and criticizes the Russian leadership under Lenin. It is a very easy to read book giving good perspectives on the Socialist Revolution. --Abhishek Kona Aug 22, 2011Animal Farm is a satirical allegory on the Russian Revolution. Orwell explains it, It is the history of revolution that went wrong. It tells the simple and tragic story of what happens when the oppressed farm rebel to attain freedom from Mr. Jones. It is about their attempt to rule the farm themselves on the basis of equality. The animals had initially aimed to form a utopian society, where each would work according to his capacity, respecting the needs of the others. But, they failed to do so. And, Animal Farm ended up being a dictatorship of the pigs that were the brightest, but did no physical work in reality. The main action of the story stands for The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the Soviet Union. Animalism is a metaphor for Communism. Manor farm is an allegory of Russia, Mr. Jones is Russian C-Zar, Old Major stands for Karl Marx, and Snowball represents Leo Trotsky. Napolean stands for Stalin, while the dogs are the secret police. The horse, Boxer stands for the working class which works constantly for the greater good while Squealer is the propagandist. The novel is skillfully organized and presents the horrors of communism through simple story-telling. It presents what propaganda and brain washing do to the people living under the dictatorship. How the fickle minded people were swayed easily by the pigs, who managed to reverse the seven commandments and reduce them to Four legs good, two legs better . I would recommend this book to everyone above 14 years of age who has some knowledge about communism or a hint of what happened during the Russian Revolution of 1917. The book is gripping as there is always something happening. It ends with the pigs becoming mush like humans and changing the name of the farm back to the Manor Farm . The ending was sad it shows how power turns comrades into tyrannical dictators. --Diksha Mahajan Aug 14, 2012George Orwell is probably one of the few authors who has more than one book featuring regularly in the all the favorites of most people. In such a short book, we get to experience the entire range of the human emotions - probably characterized by the animals. But, what this book basically makes us realize is the fact that politics is relevant at all times. --Deep Agrawal Mar 2, 2012About the AuthorAbout the Author: The author of Animal Farm is George Orwell. His real name was Eric Arthur Blair. He was a very popular novelist, essayist, critic and journalist. His works spoke out against the social injustice that was prevalent at that time. He was in favour of democratic socialism and was opposed to totalitarianism. He continues to be held in high esteem as one of the most influential voices of his time, who spoke out about the English culture, as it was, during his lifespan.