George Orwell First Editions: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell's two famous books were both first published by Secker & Warburg in London: Animal Farm on 17 August 1945 and Nineteen Eighty-Four on 8 June 1949. Animal Farm was a small wartime printing of 4,500 copies; Nineteen Eighty-Four ran to about 25,500. For both, the jacket carries most of the value, and each has a jacket detail collectors check first. Orwell's earlier books from Gollancz and Secker are scarcer still.

The standard reference is Fenwick's bibliography of Orwell, cited by dealers as Fenwick A10 for Animal Farm and A12 for Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Animal Farm (1945)

Animal Farm was rejected by Gollancz, Cape and Faber before Secker & Warburg took it, and it appeared as Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. The first printing was 4,500 copies, a size set by wartime paper rationing, bound in green cloth. The printer's imprint is dated May 1945, three months before publication.

The jacket is the famous point. Paper was so short that it was often printed on the back of leftover Searchlight Books jackets, so the inside of a first-state jacket shows a Searchlight advertisement with a train. The advertisement is usually printed in red, though a blue version exists and neither has priority. The front flap is priced 6s.

Harcourt Brace's American edition of 1946 dropped the subtitle and ran to 50,000 copies. A first issue of it says First American Edition on the back of the title page and has a price on the jacket flap; copies without them are later.

Prices vary widely. Christie's sold a first for £11,970 in 2023 against an estimate of £1,000 to £1,500, and Bonhams one for £6,144 in 2024. The record belongs to a copy inscribed by Orwell to the novelist Anthony Powell, which made £92,500 at Bonhams in 2015.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Secker & Warburg published Nineteen Eighty-Four on 8 June 1949. Wikipedia gives the first printing as 25,575 copies, and First and Fine 26,575, followed by 5,000 more in 1950. Harcourt Brace's American edition came out five days later, on 13 June, so the London book is the first edition.

Check these points:

• The copyright page. The first impression reads "First Published 1949". The second impression has a title page dated 1950 and says reprinted 1950.
• The binding. Green cloth lettered in red on the spine, with a red-stained top edge.
• The jacket price. 10s net on the first-issue jacket.
• The jacket colour. Jackets were issued in red and in green to the same design. The Orwell Society, Jonkers and Bauman all say neither came first. Red is scarcer, about one surviving jacket in three, and fetches more when the spine is not faded. A dealer calling red the "first issue" is wrong.

A few copies came with a wraparound band, which Jonkers calls scarce.

American copies and the book club

The Orwell Society sets out how to tell the American trade first from the Book-of-the-Month Club copy, which looks very similar:

• Both say "First American Edition" on the back of the title page.
• Only the club copy adds "By the Haddon Craftsmen, Scranton, PA" to the imprint.
• The club copy usually has a small blind dot pressed into the lower corner of the back board.
• The club jacket's front flap says Book-of-the-Month Club Selection above a $3.00 price.

Our book club edition checker walks through the same tells.

Heritage sold a first of Nineteen Eighty-Four for $20,000 in 2022. First and Fine suggests a near fine copy in a red jacket would make around £10,000 at auction.

The earlier books

Orwell's earlier books had much smaller printings and are scarcer than the famous two:

Year	Title	First edition	Notes
1933	Down and Out in Paris and London	Gollancz, 1,500 copies	His first book as George Orwell; black cloth lettered in green
1934	Burmese Days	Harper & Brothers, New York, 2,000 copies	Published in America first; Gollancz followed in 1935 with names changed
1936	Keep the Aspidistra Flying	Gollancz, 3,000 copies	Most unsold stock destroyed by bombing in 1942
1937	The Road to Wigan Pier	Gollancz	Left Book Club issue in orange wrappers, plus a cloth trade edition
1938	Homage to Catalonia	Secker & Warburg, 1,500 copies	Only 800 sold in Orwell's lifetime

Two of these need care:

• Burmese Days. Orwell himself called the Harper edition the true first, and the Gollancz text a garbled version. A signed Harper first made £11,475 at Bonhams in 2023.
• The Road to Wigan Pier. The Left Book Club issue in limp orange wrappers was published the same day as the cloth trade edition and is common; Jonkers asked £225 for one, a fraction of what the other early firsts make.

Bonhams sold a Homage to Catalonia first in a defective jacket for £2,304 in 2024.

Check your copy

1. Read the title page and the back of it: Secker & Warburg, London, and "First Published 1945" or "1949", with no reprint lines.
2. For Animal Farm, look inside the jacket for the Searchlight Books advertisement, and check for the 6s price.
3. For Nineteen Eighty-Four, check the 10s net price and the red top edge; note the jacket colour, but do not treat red as first.
4. For an American Nineteen Eighty-Four, rule out the Book-of-the-Month Club copy.
5. Grade the book and jacket with our condition guide, then try Is my book valuable?.