D. J. David John Taylor Livres

In this acclaimed biography of the 19th-century author of Vanity Fair, the first major study in twenty years, D.J. Taylor paints a compelling portrait of the endearing, exasperating, paradoxical figure. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In the last half-century George Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eight-Four have sold over 40 million copies. The adjective 'Orwellian' is now a byword for a particular way of thinking about life, literature and language, while Orwell himself has become one of the most potent and symbolic figures in Western political thought.

George Chell sits in a Suffolk hotel trying to understand his past. As he searches for the sense in his unexplained life - from stifling childhood on a Norwich housing estate to precarious prosperity in the City - he must also cope with the mysteries of the Caradon hotel and its odd proprietor.

Ever since its publication in 1948, George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian regime where Big Brother controls its citizens like 'a boot stamping on a human face' has become a touchstone for human freedom, and one of the most widely-read books in the world. In this new annotated edition Orwell's biographer D. J. Taylor elucidates the full meaning of this timeless satire, explaining contemporary references in the novel, placing it in the context of Orwell's life, elaborating on his extraordinary use of language and explaining the terms such as Newspeak, Doublethink and Room 101 that have become familiar phrases today. This is the essential edition of the essential book of modern times. Annotated and with an Introduction by D. J. Taylor 'The book of the twentieth century . . . haunts us with an ever-darker relevance.' Independent 'The greatest writer of the twentieth century.' Observer