Animal Farm: Introduction by Julian Symons Hardcover - 1993

Summary

From the rear cover

'Animal Farm' is the most famous by far of all twentieth-century political allegories, and its account of a group of barnyard animals who revolt against their vicious human master and the submit to a tyranny erected by their own kind can fairly be said to have become a universal drama for our time.

First Edition Identification

Secker and Warburg first published Animal Farm in London in 1945. With a print run of just 4,000 copies, the first edition is bound in green cloth and states “First Published May 1945” on the copyright page. The original green and grey dust jacket is famously fragile as it was cheaply produced to meet Wartime Economy Standards.

Media reviews

“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.” –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

With an Introduction by Julian Symons