George Orwell gained an enduring international reputation with his two last works of fiction, the political fable Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (1945) and his near-future dystopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Although he was never primarily a writer of fantastic fiction, these works have been extremely influential in the fields of fantasy and science fiction. In these works, as in the journalism, reportage, essays, and realistic fiction that filled the rest of his career, he gauged the contemporary European scene of the troubled 1930s and 1940s with critical insight drawn from personal experience and a deep moral commitment. His two landmark contributions to twentieth-century fantastic fiction were thus not so much a departure from his previous work as a more effective medium for voicing his moral and political concerns.

The responses that Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four received naturally brought these books to the attention of readers and writers of fantasy...