Orwell, who died the year after the release of his novel, had only signed a very limited number of copies, which are now extremely rare and highly sought-after. Complete copies carry the original wrap-around band, printed in black and are traded for more than $5,000. Fenwick 2 records two variant states of the first edition dust-jacket, published in London by Secker & Warburg, one printed in green, the other in red. Perhaps “We” deserves more recognition than it has had, but collectors are currently more excited about Orwell’s masterpiece. At that time, Orwell suggested that Zamyatin’s book was influential to the writing of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and recommended it to readers as “in effect a study of the Machine.” It is also quite clear that Orwell borrowed some key components and characters from Zamyatin’s earlier book himself. In June 1949, three years before George Orwell published his last novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, he reviewed “We” for the London Tribune readers. Another collectible English edition is the 1970, Jonathan Cape London hardcover, which trades for about £250 in a nice dust-wrapper. E.P Dutton reprinted the Gregory Zilboorg translated edition in paperback format in 1959 (paperback D39). Dutton American edition with a dust jacket are extremely scarce, commanding five figures. Some of the 1927 Russian editions of the book are asking for $500 in on-line marketplaces.Ĭopies of the 1924, E.P. The book was not to be published in Russia until the glasnost era of 1988. One particular edition that appeared in the Russian émigré journal “Volia Rossii,” caused an open political campaign against Zamyatin in the Soviet Union that led to his emigration to France in 1931. It wasn’t until 1927, that Russian editions began circulating outside Russia in Eastern Europe, having been translated back from the English, suffering severe alterations in the process 1. The first English translation and true first edition of the novel was published in New York by E. In Zamyatin’s plot, the ruler, the “Benefactor” with the assistance of the police force, the “Guardians”, directs the citizens of “One State” to undergo the “Great Operation”, which destroys the part of the brain controlling the imagination and passion.ĭespite the fact that the book’s content is fictional, it had the potential to be interpreted as having a hostile attitude towards the Marxist-Leninist world view, and therefore distribution was banned in Russia. It is surrounded by a wall of glass and occupied by humans who live in buildings built of glass, have numeric names and wear identical uniforms. The book is a satire on life in a collectivist futuristic state, “One State”, located in the middle of a wild jungle. Before Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One”, George Orwell’s “Ninteen Eighty-Four” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, there was Yevgeni Zamyatin’s “We”, the first dystopian novel ever written.
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