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.

Works

"That so many writers have been prepared to accept a kind of martyrdom is the best tribute that flesh can pay to the living spirit of man as expressed in his literature. One cannot doubt that the martyrdom will continue to be gladly embraced. To some of us, the wresting of beauty out of language is the only thing in the world that matters." -- Anthony Burgess

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fiction

• Time for a Tiger (1956) (Volume 1 of the Malayan trilogy, The Long Day Wanes)
• The Enemy in the Blanket (1958) (Volume 2 of the trilogy)
• Beds in the East (1959) (Volume 3 of the trilogy)
• The Right to an Answer (1960)
• The Doctor is Sick (1960)
• The Worm and the Ring (1960)
• Devil of a State (1961)
• One Hand Clapping (1961)
• A Clockwork Orange (1962)
• The Wanting Seed (1962)
• Honey for the Bears (1963)
• Inside Mr. Enderby (1963) (Volume 1 of the Enderby cycle of novels)
• The Eve of St. Venus (1964)
• ' (1964)
• A Vision of Battlements (1965)
• ' (1966)
• Enderby Outside (1968) (Volume 2 of the Enderby cycle)
• A Shorter 'Finnegans Wake' (1969) (editor)
• M/F (1971)
• Sophocles' Oedipus the King (1972) (translation and adaptation)
• Napoleon Symphony (1974)
• The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End (1974) (Volume 3 of the Enderby cycle)
• A Long Trip to Tea Time (for children) (1976)
• ' (1976) (long poem)
• Beard's Roman Women (1976)
• ' (1977)
• Abba Abba (1977)
• 1985 (1978)
• ' (1979) (based on his screenplay for Jesus of Nazareth (movie) )
• The Land Where The Ice Cream Grows (for children) (1979)
• Earthly Powers (1980)
• ' (1982)
• Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End of Enderby (1984) (Volume 4 of the Enderby cycle)
• The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)
• Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1985) (translation and stage adaptation)
• Oberon Past and Present (with J.R. Planche) (1985)
• The Pianoplayers (1986)
• ' (1986)
• Bizet's Carmen, libretto (1986) (translation)
• ' (1987)
• Any Old Iron (1988)
• The Devil's Mode and Other Stories (1989) (short stories)
• Mozart and the Wolf Gang (1991)
• A Dead Man in Deptford (1993)
• ' (poem) (1995)
• Revolutionary Sonnets and Other Poems (2002)

Non-fiction

• ' (1958)
• The Novel To-day (1963)
• Language Made Plain (1964)
• ' (1965), also published as Re Joyce
• The Coaching Days of England (1966) (editor)
• The Age of the Grand Tour (1966) (co-editor with Francis Haskell)
• ' (1967)
• ' (journalism) (1968)
• Novel, The (Encyclopædia Britannica essay) (1970)
• Shakespeare (1970)
• 'What is Pornography?' (essay) in Perspectives on Pornography, ed. Douglas A. Hughes (1970)
• ' (1973)
• Obscenity and the Arts (1973)
• New York (1976)
• A Christmas Recipe (1977)
• Ernest Hemingway and his World (1978), also published as Ernest Hemingway
• Scrissero in Inglese (1979) (English-language version, They Wrote in English, published in 1989)
• This Man and Music (1982)
• On Going To Bed (1982)
• ' (1984)
• ' (1985)
• ' (1986), also published as But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop and Other Writings
• Little Wilson and Big God, Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess (Autobiography, Part 1) (1986)
• An Essay on Censorship (letter to Salman Rushdie in verse) (1989)
• You've Had Your Time, Being the Second Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess (Autobiography, Part 2) (1990)
• ' (1991)
• ' (1992)
• Childhood (Penguin 60s) (1996)
• ' (journalism) (1998)
• ' (2001) (section)
• Return Trip to Tango (anthology of material published in Translation magazine) (2003) (section)

Major musical compositions

• 'A Manchester Overture' (1989)
• 'Tommy Reilly's Maggot', duet for harmonica and piano (1940s)
• 'Rome in the Rain', piano and orchestra (1976)
• Kalau Tuan Mudek Ka-Ulu, five Malay pantuns for soprano and native instruments (1955)
• 'Gibraltar', symphonic poem (1944)
• Dr Faustus, one-act opera (1940)
• 'Trois Morceaux Irlandais', guitar quartet (1980s)
• 'Bethlehem Palm Trees' (Lope de Vega) (1972)
• Chaika, for ship's orchestra (1961; composed aboard the Baltika on voyage to Leningrad)
• 'Song of a Northern City', for piano and orchestra (1947)
• 'The Bad-Tempered Electronic Keyboard', 24 preludes and fugues for piano (1985)
• Partita for string orchestra (1951)
• 'Terrible Crystal: Three Hopkins sonnets for baritone, chorus and orchestra' (1952)
• 'Ludus Multitonalis' for recorder consort (1951)
• 'Lines for an Old Man' (i.e. Eliot) (1939)
• Concertino for piano and percussion (1951)
• Symphonies: 1937; 1956 (Sinfoni Melayu); 1975 (No. 3 in C)
• Sinfoni Malaya for orchestra and brass band, including cries of "Merdeka!" from the audience (1957)
• Mr W.S., ballet suite for orchestra (1979)
• 'Cabbage Face', song for vaudeville skit (1937)
• Sinfonietta for jazz combo
• Pando, march for a P&O orchestra (1958)
• 'Everyone suddenly burst out singing' (Sassoon) for voices and piano (1942)
• Concertos for piano and flute
• 'The Ascent of F6' (Isherwood), music for dance orchestra (1948)
• 'Ode: Celebration for a Malay college', for boys' voices and piano (1954)
• 'Cantata for a Malay college' (1954)
• Passacaglia for orchestra (1961)
• 'Song of the South Downs' (1959)
• 'Mr Burgess's Almanack', winds & percussion (1987)
• The Eyes of New York music score for movie project (1975)
• 'Ich weiss es ist aus', group of cabaret songs (1939)
• Music for Will! (1968)
• Sonatas for piano (1946, 1951) and cello (1944)
• Trotsky in New York, opera (1980)
• Three guitar quartets, No. 1 in homage to Ravel (1986-1989)
• The Brides of Enderby, song cycle (1977)
• 'Music for Hiroshima', for double string orchestra (1945)
• Suite for orchestra of Malays, Chinese and Indians (1956)

Prefaces, etc.

• Introduction to Henry Howarth Bashford?s ' (Heinemann 1966)
• Introduction to Wilkie Collins?s The Moonstone (Pan Books 1967)
• Introduction to Daniel Defoe?s A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin 1967)
• Introduction to Hubert Selby Jr?s Last Exit to Brooklyn (Calder and Boyars 1968)
• Introduction to Mervyn Peake?s Titus Groan (Penguin 1968)
• Introduction to G.K. Chesterton?s Autobiography (Hutchinson 1969)
• Introduction to G.V. Desani?s All About H. Hatterr (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1970)
• Introduction to John Collier?s The John Collier Reader (Knopf 1972)
• Introduction to D.H. Lawrence and Italy (D.H. Lawrence's Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia and Etruscan Places) (Viking Press 1972)
• Introduction to Arthur Conan Doyle?s The White Company (Murray 1975)
• Introduction to Maugham?s Malaysian Stories (Heinemann 1978)
• Introduction to The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (Henry Holt & Co 1978)
• Preface to Modern Irish Short Stories, edited by Ben Forkner (Viking Press 1980)
• Introduction to Rex Warner?s The Aerodrome (Oxford University Press 1982)
• Afterword to The Heritage of British Literature (Thames and Hudson 1983)
• Introduction to Richard Aldington?s The Colonel?s Daughter (Hogarth Press 1986)
• Introduction to Venice: An Illustrated Anthology, compiled by Michael Marquesee (Conran Octopus 1988)
• Preface to Ian Fleming's Casino Royale (Coronet Books 1988)
• Preface to Ian Fleming's Dr No (Coronet Books 1988)
• Preface to Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die (Coronet Books 1988)
• Preface to Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice (Coronet Books 1988)
• Preface to David W. Barber's ' (Sound And Vision Publishing 1988)
• Introduction to Oscar Wilde?s The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin Authentic Texts 1991)
• Introduction to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (Penguin Authentic Texts 1991)
• Introduction to James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Vintage 1992)
• Introduction to James Joyce's Ulysses (Vintage 1992)
• Introduction to James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (Vintage 1992)
• Preface to The Book of Tea (Flammarion 1992)
• Introduction to Bob Cato and Greg Vitiello's Joyce Images (W.W. Norton 1994)
• Introduction to Candy Is Dandy: The Best of Ogden Nash (Carlton Books 1994)
• Foreword to collectors' edition of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Secker & Warburg 1994)
• Foreword to collectors' edition of James Joyce's Ulysses (Secker & Warburg 1994)
• Preface to Gore Vidal's Creation (Vintage USA 2002 edition of 1981 novel)