Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a democratic socialist and an anti-Stalinist, modelled an authoritarian socialist Britain on the Soviet Union in the era of Stalinism and the practices of censorship and propaganda in Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated.

The story takes place in an imagined future. The current year is uncertain, but believed to be 1984. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. It also popularized the term "Orwellian" as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage, including "Big Brother", "doublethink", "Thought Police", "thoughtcrime", "Newspeak" and the expression that "2 + 2 = 5". Parallels have been drawn between the novel's subject-matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression, among other themes. Orwell described his book as a "satire", and a display of the "perversions to which a centralised economy is liable", while also stating he believed "that something resembling it could arrive". Time magazine included it on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005, and it was placed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list, reaching number 13 on the editors' list and number 6 on the readers' list. In 2003 it was listed at number eight on The Big Read survey by the BBC. It has been adapted across media since its publication, most notably as a film, released in 1984, starring John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton and Richard Burton.