#6 in Humour
Animal Farm
- 128
- Pages
- about 2.5 h
- Reading time
- Modern Library 100 Best Novels
- Prometheus Award - Hall of Fame
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
- Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella
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Our view
In barely over a hundred pages Orwell shows how a revolution is captured by those who lead it, and how language is bent until the others no longer notice. The fable form makes the argument clear, too clear for some readers, who find the allegory heavy-handed in places. It suits readers who want a sharp, quick satire about power, and it is short enough to read in an evening.
Worth knowing Orwell finished it in 1944, but several publishers turned it down while the Soviet Union was Britain’s ally; T. S. Eliot rejected it for Faber & Faber. Secker & Warburg published it in August 1945 with the subtitle A Fairy Story. At about a hundred pages it can be read in an afternoon, and the allegory of the Russian Revolution and Stalin works even without knowing the history.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical dystopian novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It follows the mistreated anthropomorphic farm animals of Manor Farm as they rebel against their human master, and hope to create a utopian society. However, the rebellion is hijacked and betrayed, and under the dictatorship of the pigs, the farm ends up in a dystopian state nearly identical to what it was before.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 7,828 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 98% of the weight and the score stays at 8.3 — the Humour average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.3 | 582 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 7.2K | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is Animal Farm?
It has 128 pages — shorter than 96% of the ranked books in Humour.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Humour — with scores between 7.8 and 8.2, closest to this book.
