Anthems in Animal Farm Anthems in Animal Farm George Orwell's 1945 allegorical novel "Animal Farm" contains various anthems adopted by the eponymous farm, most notably the original anthem "Beasts of England" and its later replacement "Comrade Napoleon". The new song "Comrade Napoleon" praises Napoleon and doesn't represent freedom at all. This change is used to show the corruption of the principles of the animals' rebellion by Animal Farm's leader Napoleon. Both "The Internationale" and "Beasts of England" reflected the principles of Marxism and Animalism, respectively. Their replacement by different anthems reflects how these ideologies were arguably distorted by Stalin and Napoleon and thus had
Animal Farm pursuing the possibility that the political cartoonist David Low might illustrate "Animal Farm". Low had written a letter saying that he had had "a good time with "ANIMAL FARM"—an excellent bit of satire—it would illustrate perfectly." Nothing came of this, and a trial issue produced by Secker & Warburg in 1956 illustrated by John Driver was abandoned, but the Folio Society published an edition in 1984 illustrated by Quentin Blake and an edition illustrated by the cartoonist Ralph Steadman was published by Secker & Warburg in 1995 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of "Animal Farm". Orwell