Animal Farm

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. The animals at Manor Farm have had enough of Farmer Jones – he’s drunk, reckless and cares little for their welfare. When the boar, Old Major, shares his revolutionary plans, the animals are convinced they can thrive on their own once the despot Jones is overthrown. But as the pigs vie for power, they begin to bear an uncanny resemblance to the tyrants they have overthrown… George Orwell’s renowned fable became an instant success on publication after the Second World War. The novel has continued to captivate readers of all ages, and has secured Orwell’s position as one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

‘[Orwell’s] wit is both edged and human. Few writers of any period have been able to use the English language so simply and accurately to say what they mean, and at the same time to mean something’ The New Republic (1946) ‘The book for everyone and Everyman, its brightness undimmed after fifty years’ Daily Telegraph ‘Orwell … 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’ The New Yorker ‘A prophet who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, even when it offended conventional thought’ Daily Express ‘Matchlessly sharp and fresh … The clearest and most compelling English prose style this century’ Sunday Times

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair (1903–1950). A renowned journalist, essayist, critic and novelist, he is best known for his novels Animal Farm and 1984, and his work remains influential to this day.