1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) | 1949, First edition, first impression in the scarce red dust jacket

ORWELL, George (1903–1950). Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.

First edition, first impression, in the scarce red dust jacket variant.

Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in red, in the original red dust jacket.

A particularly attractive example of Orwell's masterpiece. The book is clean, bright and well preserved, retaining the highly desirable red variant dust jacket. The only notable flaw is the customary fading to the jacket spine, a near-universal issue with this title and one reflected in the price.

Published in June 1949, less than seven months before Orwell's death, Nineteen Eighty-Four stands as one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. Written while Orwell battled advanced tuberculosis on the remote Scottish island of Jura and later in a sanatorium, the novel distilled his fears of totalitarianism, surveillance, censorship and political manipulation into a work whose vocabulary has entered everyday language. Terms such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police" and "Newspeak" remain as relevant today as when they first appeared in print.

The first edition was issued simultaneously in both red and green dust jacket variants, neither carrying priority over the other. However, the red jacket has long been regarded as the more visually striking and desirable of the two and is encountered considerably less frequently on the market.

Few modern first editions combine literary significance, cultural impact and collector demand quite so completely as Nineteen Eighty-Four. First impressions in original dust jackets continue to be eagerly sought by collectors worldwide.

A handsome example of one of the defining books of the modern age.