When Orwell Became "Leo": A Literary Parody in Miniature

Among the most delightful literary discoveries are those that reveal an author's playfulness—moments when serious writers lower their guard and indulge in private jokes. Orwell’s is precisely such a treasure: a book inscribed by George Orwell, signed not with his own name but as "Leo," the first clue and tongue-in-cheek reference to his now famous essay "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool."

The Inscription: a Weighty Joke for Those in the Know

Orwell’s essay was almost impossible to find when it was first published. Tolstoy’s before him much more so and remained largely unseen in Britain. The inscription which Orwell dedicated to Horatio (Shakespearean name from Hamlet), then was a very personal and intimate parody of Tolstoy. It represents Orwell at his most mischievous. By signing himself "Leo"—a playful nod to Leo Tolstoy—Orwell is engaging in his own iterary performance art, embodying the very writer whose misreading of Shakespeare he had so brilliantly dissected in his 1947 essay. The signature itself echoes Orwell's own habit of abbreviating George as "Geo," creating a perfect parallel where Geo becomes Leo.

The book which Orwell inscribed makes the joke even richer. It was a copy of his own, Animal Farm, devastating allegory of how revolutionary ideals become corrupted. By signing his own work as "Leo," Orwell was enacting a kind of reversal—transforming himself into the very figure whose philosophy he had critiqued, much like the pigs in Animal Farm who gradually become indistinguishable from the humans they once opposed. It's a self-violation worthy of the novel's most famous corrupted commandment: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

But there is so much more to this than mere play.

Tolstoy's War on Shakespeare

To understand the wit of this inscription, one must first grasp the magnitude of Tolstoy's assault on Shakespeare. In his 1903 pamphlet, the elderly Russian master declared that Shakespeare aroused in him nothing but "irresistible repulsion and tedium." He systematically attacked King Lear as stupid, verbose, unnatural, and morally bankrupt—a play that succeeded only through "epidemic suggestion," a kind of mass delusion that had fooled the entire civilised world.

Tolstoy's ire was particularly directed at Lear, and it gave psychological insight which indicated that Tolstoy's own life eerily mirrored Lear's story. Both men made grand gestures of renunciation in old age—Lear of his kingdom, Tolstoy of his estate and copyrights. Both expected to be treated with the same deference as before. Both were betrayed by those they trusted. Both discovered too late that renouncing power while expecting to retain its benefits is a recipe for misery.

"To Be or Not to Be": Orwell's Genius Reference

Rather than quoting Shakespeare directly, Orwell crafted his own brilliant variation on Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. Addressing Horatio—Hamlet's faithful friend and the one who survives to tell the prince's story (a perfect metaphor for the spoken word!)—Orwell wrote: "the trouble about talking — is that someone has talked of it much better."

This deceptively simple line contains layers of meaning. On the surface, it's a modest admission that Shakespeare has already said everything worth saying. But it cuts far deeper, directly challenging Tolstoy's philosophy of renunciation and silence. Tolstoy believed the answer to life's suffering was to withdraw, to cease striving, to essentially stop being—his alternative to eternity was to not speak, or be, at all.

Orwell's inscription connects Hamlet's existential question—"to be or not to be"—with the enduring power of voice, story, and words that live long after death. Hamlet speaks, and four centuries later we still hear him, in spite misery. Horatio tells the story, ensuring Hamlet's voice survives. By addressing this to "Horatio," Orwell invokes the witness, the storyteller, the one who carries the tale forward—the very opposite of Tolstoy's vision of silence and withdrawal.

The irony is perfect: Tolstoy attacked Shakespeare for his love of earthly life and human complexity, yet Shakespeare's words have outlived Tolstoy's pamphlet. As Orwell himself wrote in his essay, forty years after Tolstoy's attack, "Shakespeare is still there completely unaffected, and of the attempt to demolish him nothing remains except the yellowing pages of a pamphlet which hardly anyone has read."

"Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool"

Orwell's essay remains one of the finest pieces of literary criticism in English, not because it defends Shakespeare—as Orwell himself noted, great literature needs no defense—but because it exposes the psychology behind Tolstoy's attack. Orwell argued that Tolstoy's hatred of Shakespeare stemmed from a fundamental clash of worldviews: the saint versus the humanist, the man who wants to escape earthly existence versus the man who embraces it in all its contradiction.

The Fool in King Lear, whom Tolstoy dismissed as a "tedious nuisance," becomes in Orwell's reading the voice of earthly wisdom, the reminder that "life is going on much as usual" even amid tragedy. Tolstoy couldn't tolerate the Fool for the same reason he couldn't tolerate Shakespeare: both represented an acceptance of human nature as it is, rather than as Tolstoy believed it should be, or not.

As Orwell wrote with devastating precision: "The distinction that really matters is not between violence and non-violence, but between having and not having the appetite for power." Tolstoy may have renounced armies and police forces, but he still wanted to "get inside (people's) brain and dictate (their) thoughts for (them) in the minutest particulars."

An Historical Discovery

This inscribed copy of Animal Farm offers something extraordinarily rare: Orwell in a moment of pure literary play, demonstrating his characteristic wit and deep literary knowledge. More than this though, it is a display of Orwell’s unmistakable literary capacity. The choice to sign his own work as "Leo" while addressing Horatio to echo "to be or not to be" is a perfect miniature of Orwell's essay itself.

What adds power to the inscription is the fact that Orwell and Tolstoy never met in person. Both this inscruption and Orwell’s essay were written for Tolstoy well after his passing. The real mystery then is whether this inscription represents a continuation or the beginning of their literary dialogue. Quite possibly, the very beginning of Orwell’s famous essay.

In either case, this parody represents a tangible connection to one of the 20th century's great critical essays. It's a joke that works on multiple levels: as parody, as homage, as philosophical statement, and as pure mischief. The fact that it appears in Animal Farm—with its themes of corrupted language and reversed meanings—adds yet another dimension to the performance.

In the end, Orwell's playful signature as "Leo" in a copy of his own Animal Farm does more than any lengthy argument could to make his essay's central point: that Shakespeare's vitality and humanity will outlast all attempts to diminish him, and that those who attack him most vehemently often reveal more about themselves than about their supposed target. By becoming "Leo" for a moment, Orwell shows us that even in parody, even in reversal, the power of words—Shakespeare's, Orwell's, even Tolstoy's—endures. The trouble about talking, indeed, is that someone has already talked of it much better. But of course it does not stop us from talking, from being, from living through language long after we're gone.

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