Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) was an English novelist and critic. He was also active as a composer, librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, essayist, travel writer, broadcaster, translator and educationalist. Born John Burgess Wilson in Manchester, England, he lived and worked variously in Southeast Asia, the United States and Mediterranean Europe. His fiction includes the Malayan trilogy (The Long Day Wanes) on the dying days of Britain's empire in the East, the Enderby cycle of comic novels about a reclusive poet and his muse, the classic story of Shakespeare's love-life Nothing Like the Sun, the cult exploration of the nature of evil A Clockwork Orange, and the panoramic Tolstoyan saga Earthly Powers. He wrote critical studies of Joyce, Hemingway, Shakespeare and Lawrence, produced the treatises on linguistics Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air, and turned out large quantities of journalism in various languages. He translated Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus the King and Carmen for theater, scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen, and composed the Sinfoni Melayu, the Symphony (No. 3) in C, and the opera Blooms of Dublin.

Further reading

Biographies

• Roger Lewis, a former Fellow of Wolfson College in the University of Oxford, England, has written an impressionistic and often penetrating biography. His ', a blend of vilification and affectionate tribute, was published in 2002.
• Andrew Biswell, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Burgess's fiction and journalism, has completed a biography, semi-authorised by Burgess's widow, entitled The Real Life of Anthony Burgess. Biswell is a lecturer in the English department of Manchester Metropolitan University (until 1992 was known as Manchester Polytechnic). Picador is due to publish the book, at least six years in the making and dubbed "Biswell's Life of Burgess", on 21st October, 2005.
• Michael Ratcliffe wrote the entry on Burgess for the New Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

Selected critical studies

• Richard Mathews, The Clockwork Universe of Anthony Burgess (Borgo Press, 1990)
• Martine Ghosh-Schellhorn, Anthony Burgess: A Study in Character (Peter Lang AG, 1986)
• Geoffrey Aggeler, Anthony Burgess: The Artist as Novelist (Alabama, 1979)
• Samuel Coale, Anthony Burgess (New York, 1981)
• A.A. Devitis, Anthony Burgess (New York, 1972)
• Jerome Gold, The Prisoner's Son: Homage to Anthony Burgess (Black Heron Press 1996)
• Robert K. Morris, The Consolations of Ambiguity: An Essay on the Novels of Anthony Burgess (Missouri, 1971)
• Carol M. Dix, Anthony Burgess (British Council, 1971)
• Paul Phillips, A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess (due for publication mid-2006 by Manchester University Press).

Memoirs

A few of the memoirs and other books in which Burgess is discussed:

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• Michael Mewshaw, 'Do I Owe You Something?', Granta No. 75 (2001)
• Gore Vidal, United States: Essays 1952-1992 (1993)
• Frederic Raphael, Eyes Wide Open (1999)
• Kingsley Amis, Memoirs (1991)
• D.J. Enright, A Mania for Sentences (1983); Man Is An Onion (1972)

Notable media profiles

• 'Playboy Interview: Anthony Burgess', Playboy, September 1974
• Valerie Grove, 'This Old Man Comes Ranting Home', London Times, March 6 1992
• Jim Hicks, 'Eclectic Author Of His Own Five-Foot Shelf', Life, October 25 1968
• Anthony Lewis, 'I Love England, But I Will No Longer Live There', New York Times Magazine, November 3 1968
• Richard Heller, 'Burgess The Betrayer', London Mail on Sunday, April 11 1993
• Edward Pearce, 'Let Us Now Honour a Wordsmith of Unearthly Powers', London Sunday Times, July 31 1988
• Michael Barber, 'Getting Up English Noses: Burgess at Seventy', Books, April 1987
• Chris Burkham, 'Lust for Language', The Face, April 1984
• Anthony Clare, 'Unearthly Powers', Listener, July 28 1988

Collections

• Many of Burgess's literary and musical papers are archived at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Withington, Manchester, England.
• The largest collection of Burgessiana is held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
• Burgess scholars will find much of interest at the Anthony Burgess Center of the University of Angers, France, with which Burgess's widow Liliana Macellari is connected.