He also reduced the references to race overall, perhaps uncomfortable about the implications of speaking so generally about groups and types. Orwell seems to have cut these lines on grounds of decency. Here, in the propaganda film described by Winston at the start of his diary, there is a graphic passage about the lynching of a pregnant black woman. Some revisions are minor, such as Trotsky-figure Goldstein’s description of the workings of the Party and his description of the geopolitics of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Looking at this draft, we can see Orwell revising heavily as he wrote. There are indications that Orwell let the book go to publication even though he thought it was not properly finished. The death of Orwell’s first wife in 1945, the effort of raising their young son alone and the toll of tuberculosis all slowed work and drained the author’s energy (tuberculosis would kill him in 1950, only months after the novel’s publication). Taylor details the difficult conditions that explain the novel’s long gestation. He tells us that although Orwell usually wrote quickly, he took five years to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four. This version includes an introduction by Orwell scholar DJ Taylor. With a little patience, though, the reader can adjust to Orwell’s writing, especially if familiar with the text, and glimpse this most familiar of novels anew. Added to that, the script can be somewhat crabbed, especially where Orwell adds text between existing lines. The handwriting can be a little tricky to decipher – Orwell had a habit of using cursive joining lines between words and using abbreviations. There are many crossings out and additions. It is in a jumbled state, with pages missing and drastic changes made. This edition contains what amounts to 44 per cent of the text of the published novel. Readers will remember how Winston also marvels at the beauty of the paper and binding of a blank book he buys from a junk shop. We are even given his doodles and pen tests. We see Orwell’s work in fountain pen and ballpoint (complete with ink blots), as well as 14 typewritten sides. It reproduces, in colour facsimile, the 197 surviving pages of Orwell’s manuscript, held by the John Hay Library at Brown University, Rhode Island. Published by SP Books, this is Nineteen Eighty-Four as you’ve never seen it before.
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