The room they were standing in was long-shaped and softly lit. The telescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the richness of the dark-blue carpet gave one the impression of treading on vel...

‘We can come here once again,’ said Julia. ‘It’s generally safe to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or two, of course.’ As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed...

If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles. If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the populat...

With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day’s work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, ble...

One thing that Marxist criticism has not succeeded in doing is to trace the connection between “tendency” and literary style. The subject-matter and imagery of a book can be explain...

As he put his hand to the door-knob Winston saw that he had left the diary open on the table. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER was written all over it, in letters almost big enough to be legible a...

As I stand at the lichened gate With warring worlds on either hand… To left the black and budless tree… The empty sties, the barns that st… Like tumbling skeletons– and to ri…

“In March or April, say the wiseacres, there is to be a stupendous knockout blow at Britain. . . . What Hitler has to do it with, I cannot imagine. His ebbing and dispersed military res...

THE rue du Coq d’Or, Paris, seven in the morning. A succession of furious, choking yells from the street. Madame Monce, who kept the little hotel opposite mine, had come out on to the p...