“In March or April, say the wiseacres, there is to be a stupendous knockout blow at Britain. . . . What Hitler has to do it with, I cannot imagine. His ebbing and dispersed military res...

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used N...

The chestnut tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens....

No stone is set to mark his nation… No stately tomb enshrines his nobl… Not e’en the tribute of a wooden c… Can mark this hero’s rest. He needs them not, his name untarn…

The room they were standing in was long-shaped and softly lit. The telescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the richness of the dark-blue carpet gave one the impression of treading on vel...

In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the lunch queue jerked slowly forward. The room was already very full and deafeningly noisy. From the grille at the counter the steam of ...

A happy vicar I might have been Two hundred years ago To preach upon eternal doom And watch my walnuts grow; But born, alas, in an evil time,

Brush your teeth up and down, brot… Oh, brush them up and down! All the folks in London Town Brush their teeth right up and dow… Oh! How they shine!

‘We can come here once again,’ said Julia. ‘It’s generally safe to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or two, of course.’ As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed...