George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984 is the #1 book in the country following the first week and a half of the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
Print sales of the Signet Classics edition of 1984 for the week ended Jan. 29 were almost 26,000 copies at outlets that report to NPD BookScan, making it the biggest selling book in the week. Sales the previous week were about 4,500 copies. The book was also #1 on the iBooks bestseller list.
“In one week, Signet Classics has reprinted 500,000 copies of 1984," Signet v-p and executive publicity director Craig Burke said. "That’s more than we sell in a typical year.” In 2016, 1984 sold approximately 221,000 print copies, according to BookScan.
In the first month of 2017, Signet's edition of 1984 has sold 38,826 copies according to NPD BookScan—a 185% increase over the 13,620 units sold in the same period in 2016. The sales bump is similar to the 209% increase in sales in the year to date for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and reflects a general upward trend in the sales of dystopian classics following the election, as reported by the New York Times and other outlets.
