[ORWELL, GEORGE]. Nineteen Eighty-Four. A Novel. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.
First edition, first printing. Cloth-bound supplied with original red printed dust jacket designed by Michael Kennard. Hardcover. Octavo (190 x 125 x 25 mm.), pp. 312. Publisher's original green cloth, red titles to spine, top edge dyed red. Condition: Binding tight and secure, the covers nicely preserved with sharp edges and only very minor fading to spine and marking to upper board. Contents fine and without previous ownership markings. Complete dust jacket with archival repair - having been backed with paper - showing some light shelf wear and faded to grey along spine. An excellent copy and scarce thus.
Notes: First edition of arguably the greatest dystopian novel of modern times, in scarce red jacket. [Connolly 99; Fenwick A.12a].
"I do not believe that the kind of society I described necessarily will arrive, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive" (Orwell, 1949).
"Nineteen Eight-Four depicts, with very great power, the horrors of a well-established totalitarian regime of whatever type. It is important that the western world should be aware of these dangers..." (Bertrand Russell, front flap of dust-jacket).
