Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

George Orwell

Signet Classics, 1996 - Fiction - 140 pages

Since its publication fifty years ago, "Animal Farm" has become one of the most controversial books ever written. It has been translated into seventy languages and sold millions of copies throughout the world. This edition is being published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of its original U.S. publication.

It features 100 full-color and halftone illustrations by world-renowned artist Ralph Steadman. As vital and relevant as it was fifty years ago, "Animal Farm" is a devastating satire of the Soviet Union by the man V. S. Pritchett called "the conscience of his generation." A fable about an uprising of farm animals against their human masters, it illustrates how new tyranny replaces old in the wake of revolutions and power corrupts even the noblest of causes.

This anniversary edition includes Orwell's proposed but unpublished preface to the original edition and his preface to the 1947 Ukranian edition. These appendices evoke the historical context in which Orwell conceived and wrote his classic novel.

What people are saying

Review: Animal Farm

User Review  - Brianna Reeves - Goodreads

Animal Farm By George Orwell Review by Brianna Reeves-Eliopoulos Rating: 5 Stars Animal Farm by George Orwell was one of those stories that I have always heard about, but never had read. I did not ...

Review: Animal Farm

User Review  - Faith Tyler - Goodreads

The author's purpose for writing Animal Farm was to inform people of the dangers of communism and to show just how unfair it is. He wanted to show people that it isn't all it's cracked out to be and ...

About the author

George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in Motihari in Bengal, India and later studied at Eton for four years. Orwell was an assistant superintendent with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. He left the position after five years and then moved to Paris, where he wrote his first two books, Burmese Days and Down and Out In Paris. Orwell then moved to Spain to write but decided to join the United Workers Marxist Party Militia. After being decidedly opposed to communism, Orwell served in the British Home Guard and with the Indian Service of the BBC during World War II. He started writing for the Observer and was literary editor for the Tribune. Soon after he published the world-famous book, Animal Farm, which became a huge success for Orwell. It was then towards the end of his life when Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. George Orwell died on January 23, 1950 in London.

RUSSELL BAKER is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer known for his satirical commentary and self-critical prose.

C. M. Woodhouse is also the author of "The Philhellenes"; "Apple of Discord: A Survey of Recent Greek Politics"; "The Struggle for Greece, 1941-1949"; and many other books. He lives in England.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Animal Farm: A Fairy Story; Classics on cassette with book; Volume 150 of Everyman's library; Fiction on cassette; Signet Classics; Signet modern classic; We the people bookshelf project
• Author: George Orwell
• Contributors: Russell Baker, C. M. Woodhouse
• Edition: 50, reprint
• Publisher: Signet Classics, 1996
• ISBN: 0451526341, 9780451526342
• Length: 140 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary