'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman
Hugo and Nebula winner, and one of the most reprinted SF stories ever written — the genre's definitive fable of civil disobedience.
Book Entry · Fantasy
What is Animal Farm about?
The animals of Manor Farm rise, expel the drunken farmer Jones, and establish Animalism under the commandment that all animals are equal. The pigs, being cleverest, administer; the cart-horse Boxer, being strongest, works ('I will work harder'); and the revolution proceeds, amendment by quiet amendment, towards the night the pigs walk on two legs and the commandment acquires its immortal rider: but some animals are more equal than others. Orwell's fable maps the Russian Revolution betrayal for betrayal — rejected by Faber (T. S. Eliot, personally) and others nervous of offending a wartime ally, then published into the opening of the Cold War with impeccable timing.
Why it matters
The most effective political allegory in the language, permanently in print and on syllabuses worldwide; with Nineteen Eighty-Four it made Orwell's name an adjective.
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The definitive vertical-dystopia novel, endlessly cited in architecture and sociology as well as fiction; filmed by Ben Wheatley in 2015 with Tom Hiddleston.