1948 - Softcover

...there is a beating heart here... It is as if Croft has given Orwell back his original title - but in doing so he has had to remake the universe. Which leaves him room for the really good bit... in which a tired and emotional Winston Smith stumbles upon a book that has been left in his room: none other than 1984 by George Orwell. Now, this being an alternative universe, Orwell's dystopia is not the orginal one described. It becomes pretty clear that the world in his book is our current one; in other words, the neo-liberal, free market world. Not the same nightmare; another one. ... It's at this point that the hairs go up on the back of the neck... --Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

The connection between this dystopic scenario and the current state of the nation in the run-up to brand Olympics as London enters lock-down could hardly be more telling. As an example of political verse, 1948 has to rank as one of the most accomplished achievements of the year so far. Croft and Rowson deserve all the critical plaudits that will surely come their way, as does the enterprising Five Leaves for publishing this work. --Morning Star

It's an audacious tour-de-force in which the writer tells a gripping tale while wrestling manfully with the sonnet form he has imposed on himself. The book, with cartoons by Martin Rowson, echoes George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Orwell's remark that 'writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle', is repeated in the acknowledgments. But Croft emerges a winner. Give the man a gold medal! --David Whetston, The Journal

1948 is a comic verse-novel, auaciously rewriting George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four in Pushkin sonnets. Set during the 1948 Olympics, it offers a radical alternative history of the Cold War, in which Britain has a Labour-Communist coalition government, the Royal Family has fled to Rhodesia and the US threatens to impose an economic blockade on Britain. Featuring cartoons drawn especially for the book, 1948 combines hard-boiled detective novels and Pushkin sonnetry, film-noir and Ealing comedy.