Nineteen Eighty-Four Part II

In July 1950 The New American Library of World Literature (NAL) published the first American paperback edition of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 2014 NAL published the 129th "printing" of this book. An amazing record of an average of two "printings" every year for 64 years.

I put the word printing in quotes because the 129 versions are not technically all printings of a single edition. Because the book was reset over the years there are a number of editions each with one or more impressions adding up to 129. Below are printings one and fourteen of the first edition as well as the 129th "printing". I don't know which edition this is. This last version has an afterword from Erich Fromm which first appeared in 1961 with the first printing of the "Signet Classics" edition.

Signet 798 - 1st printing July 1950

 

Signet 798 back

 

Signet S798 - 14th printing May 1956

 

Signet S798 - back

 

Signet - 129th - 2014

 

Signet 129th - back

Animal Farm Part I

In my first Orwell post I highlighted his most famous book. Here's the next most famous. Three editions from Penguin - the first, the latest and one in between. The last two have supplementary material.

Penguin 838 - 1951

Penguin 838 back

Animal Farm - 1989

Animal Farm 1989 back

Animal Farm - 2013

Animal Farm 2013 back

Nineteen Eighty-Four Part I

I posted twice to this blog last year. The reason? Nothing to say. As my legion of followers know (hi Brian), this has been a very narrowly focused blog. I've decided to open up the blog to all books that interest me, aside from the Canadian paperbacks that are the topic of my main blog Fly-by-Night.

I'll start with one of my top half dozen favourite novels - Nineteen Eight-Four. There have been dozens of paperback editions since it was first published in 1949, with Penguin leading the way. Here are three editions from Penguin - the first from 1954, an imaginative reworking from 2013 and a Times promotion from 2009.

Penguin 978 - 1954

Penguin 978 back

Penguin - 2013

Penguin - 2013 - back

Penguin - 2009

Penguin - 2009 - back