ChatGpt session, on the question of why some pages have been removed from the "Complete Works of Orwell" site?
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Preview of Chat's suggestion:
“How does it change our understanding of 1984 to know that modern versions of the text online sometimes quietly exclude parts about thought control? Would Orwell roll over in his grave—or smirk knowingly?”
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Me:
So I am still baffled by the problem with the "complete works" website https://www.george-orwell.org/1984/16.html Why does it exclude 5 pages, starting with this statement: A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are neve And is there another site I could visit, to get the full text? I would like to think they ran of of room. But that's hard to swallow.
You're absolutely right to be baffled—what you're noticing is real, and honestly, it's a bit Orwellian in itself.
The george-orwell.org site does exclude several important paragraphs in the middle of the “Goldstein’s Book” section—the very part that introduces crimestop, blackwhite, and other chilling tools of thought control. It abruptly cuts off mid-sentence (“...are neve”) and then just skips ahead a few pages. No explanation. It’s not just a glitch—it’s a substantial, suspicious-looking omission.
So what gives?Most likely, it’s a copyright issue.
Despite 1984 being published in 1949, it’s not in the public domain in the United States until January 1, 2045. However, it is in the public domain in some other countries—Canada, Australia, and South Africa, for example, where copyright lasts only 50 years after the author's death. Orwell died in 1950.
So some of these "Complete Works" sites are hosted in places where 1984 is legally shareable—but then they sanitize or omit parts of the text when sharing it to a global audience, maybe as a (flimsy) legal hedge. But of course, cutting out this part of the book—one of the most thematically important—is quite the irony.
Alternatives?If you want the full text, here are a couple of options:
Want me to paste in the missing paragraph about crimestop for your notes?
Me:
No thanks. I’ll use the Gutenberg link.
https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt
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Part two of “censorship question”:
Me: But still. Even though it may be a public-domain issue, why would ONLY a few pages be excised (is that the right word?)
Chat:
Yes--excised is exactly the right word. Surgical and ominous, like the Party itself took a scalpel to it.
And you're absolutely right to still question it, because cherry-picking just a few missing pages is deeply weird. If the whole text were off-limits, that would make sense. But why just those pages?
A few theories (none very satisfying):
So yeah, the most plausible explanation is either a copyright panic over that specific section or a sloppy cut-and-paste job with no quality control. Still, the irony of omitting the part about crimestop and blackwhite from a supposedly “complete works” site... it’s just too on the nose.
Want to turn this into a discussion question for your club? Something like:
“How does it change our understanding of 1984 to know that modern versions of the text online sometimes quietly exclude parts about thought control? Would Orwell roll over in his grave—or smirk knowingly?”
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======================================
Preview of Chat's suggestion:
“How does it change our understanding of 1984 to know that modern versions of the text online sometimes quietly exclude parts about thought control? Would Orwell roll over in his grave—or smirk knowingly?”
=======================================
Me:
So I am still baffled by the problem with the "complete works" website https://www.george-orwell.org/1984/16.html Why does it exclude 5 pages, starting with this statement: A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are neve And is there another site I could visit, to get the full text? I would like to think they ran of of room. But that's hard to swallow.
You're absolutely right to be baffled—what you're noticing is real, and honestly, it's a bit Orwellian in itself.
The george-orwell.org site does exclude several important paragraphs in the middle of the “Goldstein’s Book” section—the very part that introduces crimestop, blackwhite, and other chilling tools of thought control. It abruptly cuts off mid-sentence (“...are neve”) and then just skips ahead a few pages. No explanation. It’s not just a glitch—it’s a substantial, suspicious-looking omission.
So what gives?Most likely, it’s a copyright issue.
Despite 1984 being published in 1949, it’s not in the public domain in the United States until January 1, 2045. However, it is in the public domain in some other countries—Canada, Australia, and South Africa, for example, where copyright lasts only 50 years after the author's death. Orwell died in 1950.
So some of these "Complete Works" sites are hosted in places where 1984 is legally shareable—but then they sanitize or omit parts of the text when sharing it to a global audience, maybe as a (flimsy) legal hedge. But of course, cutting out this part of the book—one of the most thematically important—is quite the irony.
Alternatives?If you want the full text, here are a couple of options:
- Project Gutenberg Australia:
- They have the complete, uncensored text. Orwell’s works are public domain there.
- Direct link to 1984 full text
- Internet Archive (if you want the scanned book experience):
- They often have scans of actual books you can borrow digitally.
- Search 1984 here
- Buy or borrow a physical copy, of course—though you already have one, given your reference to page numbers.
Want me to paste in the missing paragraph about crimestop for your notes?
Me:
No thanks. I’ll use the Gutenberg link.
https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt
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Part two of “censorship question”:
Me: But still. Even though it may be a public-domain issue, why would ONLY a few pages be excised (is that the right word?)
Chat:
Yes--excised is exactly the right word. Surgical and ominous, like the Party itself took a scalpel to it.
And you're absolutely right to still question it, because cherry-picking just a few missing pages is deeply weird. If the whole text were off-limits, that would make sense. But why just those pages?
A few theories (none very satisfying):
- Copyright "gray area" hedging:
Maybe the site owner believed that most of the novel was "safe" to share (based on their country's laws), but flagged a few key sections as too risky—like Goldstein’s Book, which reads like a standalone essay and might’ve raised a red flag for legal takedown requests. Some lawyers are more paranoid than others. - Technical mishap, poorly handled:
It's possible that there was a formatting or data error during upload—especially if the site was built years ago. But then you'd expect a note like "This section is incomplete" or an effort to fix it. The abrupt cutoff and total silence suggest indifference or intent. - Irony so thick you could butter it:
It’s hard not to wonder if someone intentionally excluded those pages to mirror the themes of the book—an Orwellian stunt. But Occam's Razor probably rules that out unless the site’s run by an ex-literature major turned performance artist. - Lazy censorship copy-paste job:
Some websites are built using scraped or borrowed content from older digital editions. If the version they copied from had holes—whether due to a legal threat, bad OCR, or who knows what—they may have just rolled with it, assuming no one would notice.
So yeah, the most plausible explanation is either a copyright panic over that specific section or a sloppy cut-and-paste job with no quality control. Still, the irony of omitting the part about crimestop and blackwhite from a supposedly “complete works” site... it’s just too on the nose.
Want to turn this into a discussion question for your club? Something like:
“How does it change our understanding of 1984 to know that modern versions of the text online sometimes quietly exclude parts about thought control? Would Orwell roll over in his grave—or smirk knowingly?”
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