Who Wrote Animal Farm, When Was It Published, and How Long Is It?
Animal Farm was written by George Orwell, the pen name of the English writer Eric Arthur Blair. He wrote it between late 1943 and early 1944, and it was published in London by Secker and Warburg on 17 August 1945, at the end of the Second World War.
It is a short novel of about 30,000 words in ten chapters, usually around 100 to 140 pages, and most people read it in two to three hours.
| Fact | Answer |
|---|---|
| Author | George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903 to 1950) |
| Written | November 1943 to February 1944 |
| First published | 17 August 1945, London |
| First US edition | 1946 |
| Original subtitle | A Fairy Story |
| Length | About 30,000 words, 10 chapters |
| Pages | Usually about 100 to 140 |
| Reading time | About 2 to 3 hours |
| Genre | Political satire, allegorical fable |
Who was George Orwell?
George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the colonial service, and grew up in England. He served as a police officer in Burma, lived among the poor in Paris and London, and fought in the Spanish Civil War. That last experience, in which he saw political factions on his own side turn on each other, shaped his lifelong suspicion of dictatorships of every kind. He died in 1950, a year after publishing 1984.
↑ Back to the topWhy was Animal Farm hard to publish?
During the war Britain was allied with the Soviet Union, and several publishers refused a book that so clearly mocked Stalin. Victor Gollancz, Jonathan Cape and Faber and Faber all turned it down. Secker and Warburg finally published it in August 1945. It became a great success in Britain and especially in the United States, where it appeared in 1946, and it made Orwell famous.
↑ Back to the topHow long is Animal Farm?
It is about 30,000 words long, short enough to be called a novella. Page counts vary by edition, but most paperbacks run between about 100 and 140 pages. The ten chapters are brief, and reading time is usually two to three hours for an adult.
↑ Back to the topWhat age is Animal Farm for?
Animal Farm is written in simple, clear language and is often taught in schools to students around 13 to 16. The talking animals make it easy to follow, but its themes of violence, betrayal and dictatorship are serious, and the ending is bleak. Younger readers can enjoy it as a story; older readers will see the history behind it.
↑ Back to the topWhat kind of book is Animal Farm?
Orwell subtitled it A Fairy Story, and it reads like a fable with talking animals, but it is a political satire and an allegory of the Russian Revolution and Stalin's rule. It is regularly listed among the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
↑ Back to the topMore about Animal Farm
Written by Tori Books for readers and students.