The idea of a dystopian state was already old in 1949 (when the book was first published). Wikipedia lists literature back to 1835, though I think ancient Roma

The idea of a dystopian state was already old in 1949 (when the book was first published). Wikipedia lists literature back to 1835, though I think ancient Romans would have been able to write awesome dystopian literature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature