TheCambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950--2000

The name that comes most readily to mind in a consideration of the state
and the novel is George Orwell. His two most famous political fables,
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), have
proved hugely significant in the post-war world, influencing many subsequent
literary dystopias, and also supplementing our use of language.
Terms like ‘Big Brother’, ‘doublethink’ and ‘unperson’ from Nineteen Eighty-
Four have become part of the contemporary political lexicon. It is also
possible to see the cautionary note of these novels as establishing a liberal