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Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell |
No-one would have suspected that Winston and Julia were capable of crimethink (dangerous thoughts) or a secret desire for ownlife (individualism). After all, Party-Member Winston Smith was one of the Ministry of Truth's most trusted forgers; he had always flung himself heart & soul into the falsification of government statistics. And Party-Member Julia was outwardly so goodthinkful (naturally orthodox) that, after a brilliant girlhood in the Spies, she became active in the Junior Anti-Sex League. So begins the original review of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by Time Magazine. |
| LISTEN! JUDGE FOR YOURSELF THE QUALITY OF THIS RECORDING These samples are encloded at 80 kbps in MP3 format for sampling.... |
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| Winston visits a prole pub | 2 mins 22 secs (1.36 Mb) |
| Winston and Julia | 2 mins 07 secs (1.21 Mb) |
| Interrogation in the Ministry of Love | 2 mins 20 secs (1.24 Mb) |
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| Now you can have this incomparable story read to you. This audio version is completely faithful to Orwell’s novel. |
You have the choice of:
the standard audio CD recording (eight CDs, pictured above); or
a single-CD MP3 recording at 128 Kbps
an MP3 recording (part of the compilation CD George Orwell's Greatest Hits); at 96 Kbps or
an MP3 audio download at 80 Kbps.
What is the story?
Millions of people all around the world already know the story, either from reading the original novel, or from the movie version (filmed and released in 1984) starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. It is the story of one man, Winston Smith, and what happens to him in a nightmarish world where an all-powerful Government enforces perfect conformity through indoctrination, propaganda, fear, and ruthless punishment. The novel introduced the concepts of the ever-present, all-seeing Big Brother, the notorious Room 101, the ubiquitous thought police, and the bureaucrats' and politicians' language Newspeak.
It’s a futuristic fantasy |
It’s a love
story |
It’s a
tragedy |
| When this book was
written in 1949, it was viewed as a prediction of a possible future world. Despite the fact that the year of the title has passed, some of the trends and dangers of this chilling dystopia are still latent in our society. For some people, the “War on Terror” carries disturbing echoes of Nineteen Eighty Four… |
Winston and Julia
meet and fall in love under the most difficult circumstances. She is a feisty, passionate risk-taker – he is cautious, frustrated, and wary of all women. Together they snatch precious moments of tenderness and find love – but for how long? |
From the romance and
intrigue of Part 2, the book descends to the depths of despair and beyond. Parts 1 and 2 describe “how” – Part 3 answers the question “why?” |
This recording is available in four different formats:
format |
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Eight standard audio CDs in two volumes: Volume 1: CDs 1 - 4 Volume 2: CDs 5 - 8 |
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$US 21.75 (incs FREE postage) |
One MP3 CD
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$US 16.25 (incs FREE postage) |
One MP3 CD
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$US 22.65 (incs FREE postage) |
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88 MP3
files Part 1 - 107 Mb |
$US 12.00
After your purchase, I will email you a password and a link to download these three files. Please be aware they are LARGE files, and may take some hours to download, depending on the speed of your internet connection |
About the author |
| George Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair)
was born 25 June 1903 in Motihari, India, where his father, Richard, worked for the
British Civil Service. He was a King's Scholar at Eton from 1917 to
1921. |
| As a young man he joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, but returned to England in 1927 having grown to hate imperialism. He lived for several years in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work. During the 1930’s he found work as a schoolteacher, and as an assistant in a second-hand bookshop in Hampstead. Orwell also went to Spain in 1936 to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He drew on all these experiences for successive novels and non-fiction writings throughout the 1930’s and 40’s. During his lifetime his reputation was primarily formed and maintained as a journalist, political and cultural commentator, and essayist. However today he is best remembered for two novels written towards the end of his life: the political allegory Animal Farm and his last work, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Eric Blair died in London on 21 January 1950. |
