Manhattan Rare Book Company

"On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."

FIRST UK EDITION AND FIRST US EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE 20TH CENTURY.

“The time is 13 o’clock; the date doesn’t matter; the year goes without saying. Winston Smith, a bureaucrat at the Ministry of Truth, toils day and night in the service of Big Brother, the remote, faux-benign ruler of this eerily familiar dystopia. Orwell’s novel is a study of every possible way a nation can be beaten down by its government: spiritually, physically, intellectually, by the media, torture, surveillance, and censorship, to the point where the state can manipulate reality at will. When Smith is tempted by a beautiful resistance fighter into an act of rebellion, 1984 becomes something more: a strange, tragic, deeply sad love story. It is Orwell’s triumph, and the century’s misfortune, that 1984 is as prescient as it is pessimistic” (Lev Grossman, All-Time 100 Novels).


The UK edition is the true first edition, published on June 8, 1949; the first US edition followed only five days later. The UK edition was published with both red and green dust jackets (no priority established); the US in both red and blue (no priority).

[UK edition]. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949. Octavo, original cloth, original green dust jacket. Book with fading to spine and edges; a little foxing to text block. Dust jacket with restoration to the edges and folds. Dust jacket color exceptionally bright.

[US edition]. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949. Original cloth, original red dust jacket. Neat ownership signature dated June 1949 on front pastedown. Only a hint of edgewear. A beautiful copy, rare in such good condition.

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