1984 Explained | George Orwell

The archetype of the Wanderer appears as a figure of profound loneliness, who drifts through life without a fixed home or direction, restless in the search for purpose and belonging. He has far-sickness, a deep longing for distant places and the hope of eventually finding a place ...  Show more

While Death may appear at times terrifying and at other times playful, those he summons almost always tremble with fear. All except one: the Fool. He joins the dance with a smile, laughing at the absurdity of it all. To him, the world is a theatre, and all men and women merely ac ...  Show more

The vision of the future evoked in George Orwell’s last novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was so terrifying to its first readers that some claimed to be unable to sleep at night. When the book was adapted by the BBC for the new medium of television after Orwell’s death, millions became ...  Show more

There's a reason why words like "Orwellian" and "thoughtcrime" have stuck in the public consciousness for more than 65 years, and that reason is George Orwell's 1984.

A denser, more complex read than Orwell's also-famous Animal Farm, 1984 is a story about systemic gover ...

This week David discusses George Orwell’s ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941), his great wartime essay about what it does – and doesn’t – mean to be English. How did the English manage to resist fascism? How are the English going to defeat fascism? These were two different question ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Orwell's (1903-1950) final novel, published in 1949, set in a dystopian London which is now found in Airstrip One, part of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania which is always at war and where the protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the M ...  Show more