Published in 1948, Orwell’s 1984 is a dystopian tale of a lone protagonist struggling under the rule of a repressive totalitarian government set in a future version of England, called Airstrip One. Famous for an imagined language that conjures a cruelly cynical authoritarian regime, 1984 is one of the most popular novels in the English Language. Part political thriller and science fiction, the book established the word Orwellian to describe official deception, unwarranted surveillance and revisionist history by the state.