A “mystery benefactor” bought the copies of George Orwell’s dystopian satire at Booksmith and asked that they be given away free to interested customers, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

George Orwell’s “1984,” published seventy years ago today, has had an amazing run as a work of political prophecy. It has outlasted in public awareness other contenders from its era, such as ...

For Orwell, the ways in which people are dominated and controlled is not through pleasure but through pain. 1984, in many ways, is a very graphic tale of someone’s torture and eventual breakdown.