Animal Farm : A Fairy Story / Pictures by Ralph Steadman

Orwell, George

ISBN 10: 0436202948 / ISBN 13: 9780436202940

Published by London : Secker & Warburg, 1995

About this Item

~ Special edition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first publication also by Secker & Warburg. Includes in its entirety an essay called "The Freedom of the Press" intended as a preface but unpublished to the original edition and another preface Orwell wrote in March 1947 to the Ukrainian edition which original text has not been traced, the version given here being a re-casting back into English from the Ukrainian translation. It was not until 1972 when British librarian and scholar Ian Angus discovered the original typescript titled "The Freedom of the Press" that was finally published by Bernard Crick in The Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972. However, some recent editions of the book still refused to include Orwell's preface ~ With 104 illustrations, namely 30 double-page, 3 full-page and 18 vignettes all in color and 53 small black vignettes as headpieces, culs-de-lampe and in margins, not counting those on jacket, cover and endpapers ~ Red grained paper covered boards, spine lettered in black, gauffered black pictorial vignette on front cover, pictorial endpapers, with illustrated dust jacket ~ 179+[1]p ~ 26x20x2cm. ~ A Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket ~ LANGUAGE: English // We accept PayPal & EU bank transfer in EUROS //.

Seller Inventory # 11372B

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Animal Farm : A Fairy Story / Pictures by Ralph Steadman
• Publisher: London : Secker & Warburg
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0436202948
• ISBN 13: 9780436202940
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Steadman, Ralph
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

The classic political satire on the corrupting nature of power, in which the animals of Mr Jones's farm successfully overthrow their human masters and resolve to live in harmony and equality, only to find that "some are more equal than others". This is a special anniversary edition.

Review

Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has been recognized as a classic of modern political satire. Fuelled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing--both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson