Animal Farm

Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Wellington leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges. “Animal Farm” – the history of a revolution that went wrong – is George Orwell’s brilliant satire on the corrupting influence of power.

Author Biography Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India and was schooled at Eton. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, which provided inspriation for his first novel, Burmese Days. He went on to become a journalist, working for the BBC, Tribune, the Observer and the Manchester Evening News. He is best known for h is two novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. He died in 1950.

Critical Reviews
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Kirkus Reviews UK Well-written, thought-provoking, funny and above all short, it is considered perfect for the attention span of the MTV generation. For those who have yet to have the pleasure it is a satire on Stalinism in which animals take over a farm. Inspired by the vision of the prize boar Old Major, the animals of Manor Farm rebel against their human masters and establish a model democratic community in which ‘all animals are equal’. But power corrupts, and gradually the dictator pig, Napoleon, betrays the animals back into slavery. (‘All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.’) (Kirkus UK) Kirkus Reviews US A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies… A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell’s animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Biography

Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), better known by his pen-name, George Orwell, was born in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. An author and journalist, Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. His novels and non-fiction include Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.