Preliminary drafts representing about 44% of the published text of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four have survived and were reproduced in a facsimile edition published in 1984. As Sonia Orwell wrote on 28 August 1974 to Daniel G. Siegel, who now owns the manuscript, “it is such a rare document” for “unfortunately George always threw away all his mss. letters etc., so his actual working methods are very badly documented.”
Syme explains the Newspeak dictionary to Winston:
‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words … what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take “good”, for instance. If you have a word like “good”, what need is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not.’
Newspeak and the destruction of words
The rhyme of “Oranges and Lemons”:
Oranges and Lemons is an old English nursery rhyme that appears at various points in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s
Orwell uses “three farthings” instead of “five farthings” in the novel. The complete lyrics of the rhyme are as follows:
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin’s.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
The girl from the Fiction Department:
‘He did not know her name, but he knew that she worked in the Fiction Department … A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips … The idea had even crossed his mind that she might be an agent of the Thought Police.’
Julia - the girl from the Fiction Department
O’Brien torturing Winston at the Ministry of Love:
Winston finally betrays Julia and screams out: ‘Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her.’
O’Brien torturing Winston at the Ministry of Love
Source: Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile of the Extant Manuscript. Ed. Peter Davison. London: Secker & Warburg, 1984.
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