Reception of the colleagues

• After 1984 appears in June 1949, leading literary critics of the time rank it as one of the most discussed books of the next few years. Orwell is seen as a visionary who wants to shed light on political grievances
• He also sees himself as a publicist who wants to draw attention to the unnoticed social injustices and dangers
• Because of his dystopian and socially critical style of writing, Orwell is put on a par and compared with world authors such as Dostoevsky, Wells, Huxley

Resonance of the audience

• Apart from the primarily positive feedback, specific parties also felt attacked by the novel. The American government, for example, misunderstood the work as a harsh criticism of the British Labour Party, to which Orwell, however, took a stand and rejected this supposed attack
• In Europe, 1984 was polarising: after its publication, the work was seen as a supposed counterpart to the communist regime in the former USSR. Especially at the time of the GDR 1949-1989 in Germany, 1984 was subject to censorship and the statesmen felt cornered by the socio-critical examination of a police state
• Basically, it can be stated that George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 is one of the most important works of English-language and world literature

Success and awards

• At the beginning of 1949, the novel reached peak print runs of up to 190,000 copies over the next four years, and by 1951, 1984 was considered an American paperback bestseller
• Seven years after the publication of his work, 1984 was already in print in millions of copies. In addition, the novel was broadcast as a radio programme and released on American CBS TV in 1953, on British BBC TV in 1954, and as a film version in 1956 under production by Columbia Pictures
• Even though by 1964 the initial euphoria for the work had waned somewhat, 1984 was also brought to the stage around 1962
• From 1983 onwards, demand and media interest in the dystopian novel grew again, in view of the approaching year and book title 1984. The then burgeoning comeback of the work is also referred to as a kind of "Orwellmania"
• To this day, Orwell's work 1984 looks back on a staggering four million printed versions