Nineteen Eighty Four
by George Orwell
Summary
Low level bureaucrat Winston Smith secretly rebels against the all seeing Party and its leader Big Brother in a totalitarian future London, falling into a forbidden love affair before the state's surveillance apparatus closes in around him. Orwell coined a vocabulary, including doublethink, thoughtcrime, and Big Brother, that has since become permanently embedded in the English language for describing authoritarian control. The novel stands as one of the most influential and frequently referenced works of political fiction ever written.
Historical Context & Significance
The 1950 Pulitzer for fiction went to A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s The Way West, a novel of the Oregon Trail entirely removed from Orwell's dystopian concerns. Orwell died of tuberculosis just months after the novel's publication, never witnessing the immense and lasting influence it would go on to have.