‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.’ This is one of the most famous quotations from George Orwell’s 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The words are spoken by O’Brien, the grand inquisitor of the totalitarian regime in Orwell’s novel.
‘Down the Mine’ is an essay by George Orwell (1903-50), originally published as the second chapter of his 1937 book The Road to Wigan Pier but later reprinted as a separate essay. In ‘Down the Mine’, Orwell describes his experience of going down an English coal mine to see the […]
‘A Hanging’ is a short essay by George Orwell. However, to this simple statement we should probably add two caveats. One is the difficulty of categorisation, when Orwell himself described this ‘essay’ as ‘a story’, suggesting it was fiction rather than an account of a real-life event. The other caveat […]
‘My Country Right or Left’ is a 1940 essay by George Orwell, in which he reflects on his childhood memories of the First World War and outlines why he supports the Second World War, which had broken out the year before. However, as with many of Orwell’s essays, he makes […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle analyses the famous line from Orwell: ‘some animals are more equal than others’ Animal Farm very nearly didn’t make it into print at all. First, not long after Orwell completed the first draft in February 1944, his flat on […]