Animal Farm

For the animals of Manor Farm, life consists almost entirely of mud, hunger and exploitation at the hands of Mr Jones. When, one evening, the farmer drunkenly neglects to feed his animals, revolution is provoked, taking the form of a violent coup. The newly named ‘Animal Farm’ becomes a utopian society built on the principles of ‘Animalism’, an egalitarian philosophy dreamt up by old Major, a wise and respected Middle White boar. Soon the new society has its own anthem and a list of commandments by which all must obey; the last and most important of these being “all animals are equal”. But as anyone will tell you “some animals are more equal than others”, and when leadership is required to run the farm it is the intellectually superior pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, who fight for the position. In the struggle, a new tyranny emerges to replace the old, until one is indistinguishable from the other, leading to the novel’s nightmarish final image. Published in August 1945, between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, Animal Farm was originally written as a satire of the Soviet Union. In the 80 years since its publication, it has grown to represent many things to generations of readers: a fairy story, a parable, an allegory. Today it stands most firmly as a warning against the dangers of utopian idealism and those who would pervert it for their own gain. This new edition includes the preface George Orwell originally intended for the novel, later published as ‘The Freedom of the Press’.