George Orwell’s Animal Farm was published in Britain by Secker & Warburg on 17 August 1945. The first printing consisted of 4,500 copies. Getting that far had taken Orwell through a series of rejections in which politics mattered as much as publishing judgement.

Orwell wrote most of Animal Farm during 1943 and 1944. He called it a ‘fairy story’, using a rebellion by farm animals to satirise the Russian Revolution and the development of Stalin’s dictatorship.

The timing created a problem. The Soviet Union was one of Britain’s most important allies in the war against Nazi Germany. An openly anti-Stalinist book could therefore be politically awkward even for publishers willing to print criticism of the Soviet system at other times.

Orwell’s regular publisher, Victor Gollancz, declined the manuscript. Faber & Faber also rejected it. T. S. Eliot, then a director of the firm, praised aspects of Orwell’s writing but disagreed with the book’s political position.

Jonathan Cape came closer to publication. The firm initially accepted the manuscript but reconsidered after consulting an official at the Ministry of Information. Cape then told Orwell that publication would be ill-advised at that time. The government did not ban Animal Farm. Still, the episode confirmed Orwell’s concern that political caution influenced what publishers were willing to issue.

Secker & Warburg accepted the book in 1944. Publication still had to wait, partly because wartime restrictions left publishers with limited paper supplies.

By the time Animal Farm appeared on 17 August 1945, Germany had surrendered, and the war in Europe was over. A book that British publishers had repeatedly considered too politically troublesome to handle during the war was finally in print.

The first edition was small. It did not remain so.