File photo shows writer George Orwell, author of "1984." The literary executor of George Orwell’s estate is accusing Amazon.com of quoting Orwell out of context.The Associated Press
The literary executor of George Orwell's estate is accusing Amazon.com of committing an Orwellian crime: doublespeak.
In a letter published this week in The New York Times, Bill Hamilton criticized the online retailer for "turning the facts inside out" by alleging that the British author, known for the novels 1984 and Animal Farm, had urged publishers in the 1930s to join together and stop the rise of paperbacks.
"I'm both appalled and wryly amused that Amazon's tactics should come straight out of Orwell's own nightmare dystopia, 1984," Hamilton wrote.
Amazon and Hachette Book Group have been locked in a nasty standoff over terms for e-book sales, with the online retailer removing preorder buttons, reducing discounts and slowing deliveries for many Hachette releases. In a message posted on its website, Amazon likened publishers' objections to concerns about paperbacks in the 1930s. The retailer cited a 1936 essay by Orwell in which he wrote of paperbacks that if "publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them."
Amazon stated that "George Orwell was suggesting collusion," a reference to the 2012 U.S. government lawsuit alleging that Apple and five publishers, including Hachette, had conspired to raise e-book prices; all five publishers settled out of court.
But Hamilton and others say that Amazon quoted Orwell out of context, and that his words were meant ironically. Orwell had been praising some new releases from Penguin, which had recently launched its now-famous line of paperbacks.
"The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them," Orwell wrote.
An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday.
Orwell's admiration of paperbacks was tempered by the kinds of misgivings that writers and publishers today have about e-books, a market dominated by the Seattle-based retailer. He called it "a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade" and worried that a "flood of cheap reprints" might "cripple the lending libraries" and "check the output of new novels."
"In my capacity as reader I applaud the Penguin Books; in my capacity as writer I pronounce them anathema," he wrote.