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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Severin Carrell Scotland editor

Scottish artist receives hundreds of copies of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in the post

Artist Hans K Clausen lies on hundreds of copies of the book, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Artist Hans K Clausen is on track to collect 1,984 copies of the book for an exhibition on Jura, the island where it was written. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Copies of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four have been arriving at an artist’s studio in Edinburgh for months. Every shape and size, posted from Ukraine, Hong Kong, Peru, Germany, Cape Cod and Sarajevo.

Some are in mint condition, others are dog-eared, tea-stained, heavily annotated or turned into graffitied art works. One is a water-stained first edition; one is a secret love letter from a married woman to her first love; another, a graphic novel version, came from Orwell’s son Richard Blair.

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