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Fiction

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four

£80

Illustrated by La Boca

Introduced By Elif Shafak

Orwell’s chilling dystopia remains as urgent and unsettling as ever. With bold artwork by La Boca and a powerful introduction by Elif Shafak, this striking version of Nineteen Eighty-Four pairs political prophecy with bold design – a novel that still questions power, truth and freedom in every generation.

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Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Book Details

Production DetailsBound in screen-printed buckram
Printed book edges
Blocked slipcase with a printed lining

Dimensions10 inches x 7½ inches

FontTypeset in Nexus Serif Pro with Ayer Deck as Display

Pages312

AuthorGeorge Orwell

Illustrated byLa Boca

IllustrationFrontispiece; Seven colour illustrations

Publication Date21/10/2025

PrintingFirst Printing

Editor's Notes

Nineteen Eighty-Four is both prophetic and cautionary, and deeply relevant to today's disruptive political climate. From corruption in politics to the rise of surveillance in our society, this is one of the great political novels of the 20th century, or indeed any century.

Synopsis

Big Brother, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Doublethink, Room 101. The ominous jargon coined by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, his last and greatest novel, are understood even by those who have yet to read the book. In Airstrip One, truth is a memory and thought is a crime. Winston Smith dares to question the Party – and pays the price. Orwell's dystopia is as stark and startling as ever, a mirror that reflects each new generation's fears. Big Brother never left, and Nineteen Eighty-Four is fiction that reads like prophecy – and still has the power to bite.

About the Illustrator

La Boca

La Boca is an independent design studio established in 2002, specialising in illustration and image-making. They strive to create emotional connections through their work and value any part they can play in contributing to popular culture. They have worked with a wide spectrum of international clients on projects ranging from limited-edition record sleeves to full-scale campaigns drawing on almost every type of media.

They are multi-award-winners, having garnered prizes from D&AD, Cannes Lions, European Design Awards, ADC Awards and AIGA; as well as the British Book Awards for the cover design of Folio's Ubik (1969, Folio 2019), and a Dezeen award for their work on Folio's The Complete Stories of Philip K Dick (1987; Folio 2021).

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About the Illustrator

La Boca

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About the Illustrator

La Boca

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About the Illustrator

La Boca

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About the Illustrator

La Boca

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About the Author

George Orwell (1903–50) was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, India (where his father worked for the Civil Service) into what he would later call a ‘lower-upper-middle class’ family. The family returned to England in 1907 and, after studying at Eton, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police Force in Burma. Whilst in Burma he developed a critical attitude towards authority, which he evoked in his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). He resigned from the police force in 1927 and took to exploring the poverty of his home country with a view to becoming a writer. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals.

His first work of non-fiction, Down and Out in Paris and London , was published in 1936, and in the same year he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) was his powerful description of the poverty he saw there. He fought in the Spanish Civil War, experiencing the factionalism breaking apart the Republican cause and became virulently anti-Communist, a stance reflected in his Homage to Catalonia (1938). During the Second World War Orwell served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service. As literary editor of Tribune , he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary and also wrote for The Observer and Manchester Evening News . His political satire Animal Farm was published shortly after the end of the war in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949, Folio 2014), that brought him worldwide fame. Orwell’s letters and diaries have been published posthumously by The Folio Society as an exclusive edition, selected and introduced by Orwell expert Peter Davison.

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