[Eric Arthur Blair, writing as:] ORWELL, George (1903-1950)

[Cartoon Strip] Animal Farm

[c. 1954]. First Edition thus. Stiff Wrappers. Uncommon edition of the world's most famous modern animal fable and political allegory. Oblong 8vo (164 x 240mm): [28]pp, with 52 cartoon strips. Grey illustrated wrappers printed in black, staple-bound. Light stain to top left corner of upper wrapper, else an excellent example, tightly bound and clean throughout. Fenwick (A.10.M1) mentions, in passing, the strip cartoon version serialized by British and American newspapers but not this publication. Near Fine+. Item #BB2355

Shortly after Orwell’s death, his widow Sonia was visited in London by representatives of the American producer Louis de Rochemont, seeking movie rights to Orwell’s novel. A conventional live-action adaptation was out of the question, of course, given that the book’s main characters were farmyard animals, so De Rochemont hired the British husband-and-wife animators John Halas and Joy Batchelor, who had produced propaganda films during the Second World War. Their adaptation of Animal Farm was released in 1954, the first feature-length animation movie made in the United Kingdom. Unbeknownst to Halas and Batchelor, de Rochemont secretly worked for the CIA. According to Hugh Wilford (see The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America), the CIA provided most of the $500,000 funding for the film. For Orwell, the Communists ended up no less rotten than the capitalists they’d rebelled against. For the CIA, however, such a view reflected as badly on Washington as it did on Moscow, so de Rochemont’s finale, in which humans are entirely absent, has the pigs get their comeuppance from the animals they betrayed. Harold Whitaker, one of the film's lead animators, produced the comic-strip version, which appeared in newspapers to promote release of the film, in 1954. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Price: $649.00