The MS That Survived The Blitz

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Typescripts of Animal Farm

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The travails of an author when the second Blitz was on! We are lucky to have George Orwell’s Animal Farm at all.

Orwell’s letter to his literary agent Leonard Moore, 15^th April 1944:-

I [Orwell] have taken the copy I had round to Cape’s

I hope the copy went off to the USA? I suppose you still have one copy, so perhaps you might send it me to show to Read if I can contact him.

On this day there were three copies:

1, on its way to the USA;

2, deposited with Jonathan Cape;

3, in the hands of Orwell’s literary agent, Leonard Moore.

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On June 13th 1944 the Germans began to launch their V1 Flying Bombs against England.

Orwell’s letter to Leonard Moore, 24 June 1944:-

It is a pity about Cape’s. I rang up T. S. Eliot, telling him the circumstances, and shall give him the other copy of the MS on Monday.

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On 28 June 1944, Orwell and his wife were bombed out of their flat in Mortimer Crescent, London (note by Professor Peter Davison). The first thing that Orwell did was rescue the typescript (MS) from the wreckage and deliver it to T S Eliot at Faber and Faber that same day (this must be “the other copy” that Orwell mentioned to Moore on the 24^th, it is not clear where the first copy might have gone).

Orwell’s letter to T. S. Eliot, 28 June 1944:-

This MS. has been blitzed which accounts for my delay in delivering it & its slightly crumpled condition, but it is not damaged in any way.

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The first edition of Animal Farm was ultimately published in London by Secker and Warburg on Friday August 17th, 1945.