> Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.

This essay was written in 1946. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell_bibliography#Nov... consecutive books he published were:

* Coming Up for Air (1939)

* Animal Farm (1945)

Given the "seven years", it appears considered "Coming Up for Air" his previous novel, and "Animal Farm" not a novel. I wonder why?

In any case, the novel that he next wrote “fairly soon”, and which he predicted would be a failure, was:

* Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

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caymanjim 2 days ago | parent [-]

Animal Farm is considered a novella, which is shorter than a novel.

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pasquinelli 2 days ago | parent [-]

for perspective, a novel is around 100k words, and animal farm is under 30k.

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robin_reala 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Typically a novel is over 40k words plus, a novella is 15-40k words, and a short story is 15k or under. Depends on who you ask though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novella#Word_counts

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sdthjbvuiiijbb 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

No, "typically" it's a "know-it-when-you-see-it" kind of thing. Trying to delineate precise word count boundaries is a misrepresentation of how these words are used. The numbers you gave are reasonable guidelines but are certainly not determinative.

	▲	robin_reala 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, that’s why I used the words “typically” and ”depends on who you ask”.

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ThreeFx 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That chart implies it is possible for somebody to write a work that wins the Hugo awards for best novelette and best novella, which I’d really like to see happen!

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svat 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

For perspective closer to the topic here, these are the approximate word counts of the books currently listed at "George Orwell bibliography" under "Novels":

• Burmese Days (1934): 97000

• A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935): 94000

• Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936): 87000

• Coming Up for Air (1939): 83000 (?)

• Animal Farm (1945): 30000 (just over 30k)

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949): 103000 (or 99000 without the “The Principles of Newspeak” appendix).