Animal Farm

A Novel

D. J. Taylor George Orwell

A brand-new edition of Orwell’s savage satire of the Soviet Revolution—with an introduction and annotations by acclaimed Orwell scholar D. J. Taylor.

First published in 1945, just as the allied forces had begun to parcel up the post-war world, Orwell’s satire of the Soviet Revolution was instantly acclaimed as a Cold War classic. Set in the English countryside in the early years of the twentieth century, this is the story of a rebellion that fails, carried out by revolutionaries who all too swiftly turn into the thing they were trying to destroy.

This new edition includes an introduction, extensive annotations, an appendix containing original responses to the novel, as well as letters and documents from the period in which Animal Farm was written.

D. J. Taylor is a novelist, critic ,and biographer whose Orwell won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. His most recent books are Kept; Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation; Ask Alice; and Derby Day, which was nominated for the Booker Prize and was selected as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year.

George Orwell, the pseudonym for Eric Blair, was born in Bengal and educated at Eton in England. An opponent of totalitarianism, he served in the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Besides his classic novel Animal Farm, his books include a novel based on his experiences as a colonial policeman, Burmese Days, two firsthand studies of poverty, Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier; an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia; and the extraordinary novel of political prophecy whose title became a permanent part of our language, 1984.  Orwell died in 1950.

Buy it now in print:

Buy it now in ebook:

Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for Animal Farm:

“Animal Farm remains our great satire on the darker face of modern history.” Malcolm Bradbury

“As lucid as glass and quite as sharp. Animal Farm has the double meaning, the sharp edge, and the lucidity of Swift.” Atlantic Monthly

“A wise, compassionate, and illuminating fable for our times.” The New York Times

“Orwell has worked out his theme with a simplicity, a wit, and a dryness that are close to La Fontaine and Gay, and has written in a prose so plain and spare, so admirably proportioned to his purpose, that Animal Farm even seems very creditable if we compare it with Voltaire and Swift.” Edmund Wilson, The New Yorker

“Orwell’s satire here is amply broad, cleverly conceived, and delightfully written.” San Francisco Chronicle

“The book for everyone and Everyman, its brightness undimmed after fifty years.” Ruth Rendell