Animal Farm: A Novel

383 Madison Avenue, New York 17: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946. Stated 1946 copyright. No other dates. Dark olive green cloth boards, bright gilt spine titles, slight shelf wear. Small blind-stamped dot to back lower board. Pages near fine, clean, and bright; no writing. Bind fine; hinges intact. Scarce original wrapper, moderate edge wear, rub, some fleck; unpriced, protected in new clear sleeve. Classic first edition wrapper design with geometric field with interspersed red and black titles, over black b.g. with crossing matrix motif. Includes fine ephermeral flyer with wonderful contemporaneous summary of this title. Near fine in near good wrapper. A classic and absurd modern fable. Described as a masterpiece, fairy story, brilliant satire, and frightening view of the future. Animal Farm is a devastating attack on the pig-headed, gluttonous and avaracious rulers in an imaginary totalitarian state. Orwell utilizes anthropomorphized farmyard animals to illuminate the range of human behavior from love to hate, and comedy to tragedy. From back panel: "George Orwell is an English critic, essayist, and novelist who writes regularly for 'The London Observer' and 'The New Statesman' and 'Nation.' He is a frequent contributor to Cyril Connolly's monthly magazine 'Horizon,' and his London letters have appeared in this country in 'Partisan Review.' Born in Bengal of an Anglo-Indian family, Orwell was a rebellious scholar at Eton, served five years in Burma as a member of the Indian Imperial Police, fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War and was severely wounded." The animals on Mr. Jones's farm stage a successful revolution, and take the place over. Their hopes, plans, and achievements form the subject of this cautionary tale. In the first flush of enthusiasm there is set up a great commandment, 'All animals are equal,' but unfortunately leadership devolves almost automatically on the pigs, who are on a higher intellectual level than the other barnyard beasts. The revolution begins to go wrong - yet at every step, excellent excuses are always forthcoming for each perversion of the original doctrine. Mr. Orwell has a wonderful sympathy for most of his animal characters, and they are all very much alive. It is not only the fight between the two pigs, Snowball and Napolean, as to who shall run things - what equally stirs and brings tears is what happens to the devoted work-horse, Boxer, and even to that less admirable, but very deftly pictured character, the mare Mollie, who loves ribbons. About this little volume there is the same kind of reality one concedes to 'Alice in Wonderland.' It lives in the heart as a direct story, as a story for its own sake, and yet, although the author never intrudes or points a moral, it also takes on meanings from what we have all noticed in the affairs of the world. To read it is an experience out of the ordinary, for it goes at a bounce into that region where the heart and the head join together in enjoyment. Printed in the United States of America by the Haddon Craftsmen, Scranton, Pa. 118 pages. Insured post.. First Book Club Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Good. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Book.