Orwell resisted any attempt to have the book “mucked about.” He flatly refused to let the US Book-of-the-Month-Club publish an edition minus the appendix and Goldstein’s book, even at the risk of losing, Warburg estimated, around £40,000 in sales. Anyone who thought these essayistic sections were disposable because they didn’t advance the story didn’t grasp Orwell’s purpose at all. Even before Nineteen Eighty-Four was out, people seemed determined to misunderstand it.
