John Anthony Burgess Wilson (/ˈbɜːrdʒəs/;[2] 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) was an English writer and composer.
Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, hisdystopian satireA Clockwork Orange remains his best-known novel.[3] In 1971, it wasadapted into a controversialfilm byStanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. Burgess produced a number of other novels, including theEnderby quartet, andEarthly Powers. He wrotelibrettos and screenplays, including the 1977 television mini-seriesJesus of Nazareth. He worked as a literary critic for several publications, includingThe Observer andThe Guardian, and wrote studies of classic writers, notablyJames Joyce. A versatile linguist, Burgess lectured in phonetics, and translatedCyrano de Bergerac,Oedipus Rex, and the operaCarmen, among others. Burgess was nominated and shortlisted for theNobel Prize in Literature in 1973.[4][5]
Burgess also composed over 250 musical works; he considered himself as much a composer as an author, although he achieved considerably more success in writing.[6]
In 1917, Burgess was born at 91 Carisbrook Street inHarpurhey, a suburb ofManchester,England, to Catholic parents, Joseph and Elizabeth Wilson.[7] He described his background aslower middle class; growing up during theGreat Depression, his parents, who were shopkeepers, were fairly well off, as the demand for their tobacco and alcohol wares remained constant. He was known in childhood as Jack, Little Jack, and Johnny Eagle.[8] At hisconfirmation, the name Anthony was added and he became John Anthony Burgess Wilson. He began using thepen name Anthony Burgess upon the publication of his 1956 novelTime for a Tiger.[7]
His mother Elizabeth (née Burgess) died at the age of 30 at home on 19 November 1918, during the1918 flu pandemic. The causes listed on her death certificate wereinfluenza, acutepneumonia, andcardiac failure. His sister Muriel had died four days earlier on 15 November from influenza,broncho-pneumonia, and cardiac failure, aged eight.[9] Burgess believed he was resented by his father, Joseph Wilson, for having survived, when his mother and sister did not.[10]
After the death of his mother, Burgess was raised by his maternal aunt, Ann Bromley, inCrumpsall with her two daughters. During this time, Burgess's father worked as a bookkeeper for a beef market by day, and in the evening played piano at a public house inMiles Platting.[8] After his father married the landlady of this pub, Margaret Dwyer, in 1922, Burgess was raised by his father and stepmother.[11] By 1924 the couple had established atobacconist andoff-licence business with four properties.[12] Burgess was briefly employed at the tobacconist shop as a child.[13] On 18 April 1938, Joseph Wilson died from cardiac failure,pleurisy, and influenza at the age of 55, leaving no inheritance despite his apparent business success.[14] Burgess's stepmother died of a heart attack in 1940.[15]
Burgess has said of his largely solitary childhood "I was either distractedly persecuted or ignored. I was one despised. ... Ragged boys in gangs would pounce on the well-dressed like myself."[16] Burgess attended St. Edmund's Elementary School, before moving on to Bishop Bilsborrow Memorial Elementary School, bothCatholic schools, inMoss Side.[17] He later reflected "When I went to school I was able to read. At the Manchester elementary school I attended, most of the children could not read, so I was ... a little apart, rather different from the rest."[18] Good grades resulted in a place at agrammar school,Xaverian College, which he attended from 1928 to 1936.[7]
Burgess was indifferent to music until he heard on his home-builtradio "a quite incredible flute solo", which he characterised as "sinuous, exotic, erotic", and became spellbound.[19] Eight minutes later the announcer told him he had been listening toPrélude à l'après-midi d'un faune byClaude Debussy. He referred to this as a "psychedelic moment ... a recognition of verbally inexpressible spiritual realities".[19] When Burgess announced to his family that he wanted to be a composer, they objected as "there was no money in it".[19] Music was not taught at his school, but at the age of about 14 he taught himself to play the piano.[20]
Burgess met Llewela "Lynne" Isherwood Jones at the university where she was studying economics, politics and modern history, graduating in 1942 with an upper second-class.[24] Burgess and Jones were married on 22 January 1942.[7] She was the daughter of secondary school headmaster Edward Jones (1886–1963) and Florence (née Jones; 1867–1956), and reportedly claimed to be a distant relative ofChristopher Isherwood, although the Lewis and Biswell biographies dispute this.[25] According to Burgess's own account, it was not from his wife that the alleged connection to Christopher Isherwood originated: "Her father was an English Jones, her mother a Welsh one. [...] Of Christopher Isherwood [...] neither the Jones father or daughter had heard. She was unliterary ..."[26] Biswell identifies Burgess as the origin of the alleged relationship with Christopher Isherwood—"if the rumour of an Isherwood affiliation signifies anything, it is that Burgess wanted people to believe that he was connected by marriage to another famous writer"—and notes that "Llewela was not, as Burgess claims in his autobiography, a 'cousin' of the writer Christopher Isherwood"; referring to a pedigree owned by the family, Biswell observes that "Llewela's father was descended from a female Isherwood" ... "which means going back four generations ... before encountering any Isherwoods", making any connection "at best" "tenuous and distant". He also establishes that per official records, "Llewela's family name was Jones, not (as Burgess liked to suggest) 'Isherwood Jones' or 'Isherwood-Jones'."[27]
Burgess spent six weeks in 1940 as aBritish Army recruit inEskbank before becoming a Nursing Orderly Class 3 in theRoyal Army Medical Corps. During his service, he was unpopular and was involved in incidents such as knocking off a corporal's cap and polishing the floor of a corridor to make people slip.[28] In 1941, Burgess was pursued by theRoyal Military Police for desertion after overstaying his leave fromMorpeth military base with his future bride Lynne. The following year he asked to be transferred to theArmy Educational Corps and, despite his loathing of authority, he was promoted to sergeant.[29] During theblackout, his pregnant wife Lynne was raped and assaulted by four American deserters; perhaps as a result, she lost the child.[7][30] Burgess, stationed at the time inGibraltar, was denied leave to see her.[31]
Burgess left the army in 1946 with the rank ofsergeant-major. For the next four years he was a lecturer in speech and drama at the Mid-West School of Education nearWolverhampton and at the Bamber Bridge Emergency Teacher Training College nearPreston.[7] Burgess taught in the extramural department ofBirmingham University (1946–50).[34]
In late 1950, he began working as a secondary school teacher atBanbury Grammar School (nowBanbury School) teaching English literature. In addition to his teaching duties, he supervised sports and ran the school's drama society. He organised a number of amateur theatrical events in his spare time. These involved local people and students and included productions ofT. S. Eliot'sSweeney Agonistes.[35] Reports from his former students and colleagues indicate that he cared deeply about teaching.[36]
With financial assistance provided by Lynne's father, the couple was able to put a down payment on a cottage in the village ofAdderbury, close toBanbury. He named the cottage "Little Gidding" after one of Eliot'sFour Quartets. Burgess cut his journalistic teeth in Adderbury, writing several articles for the local newspaper, theBanbury Guardian.[37][better source needed]
In 1954, Burgess joined theBritish Colonial Service as a teacher and education officer inMalaya, initially stationed atKuala Kangsar in Perak. Here he taught at theMalay College (nowMalay College Kuala Kangsar – MCKK), modelled onEnglish public school lines. In addition to his teaching duties, he was a housemaster in charge of students of thepreparatory school, who were housed at aVictorian mansion known as "King's Pavilion".[38][39] A variety of the music he wrote there was influenced by the country, notablySinfoni Melayu for orchestra and brass band, which included cries ofMerdeka (independence) from the audience. No score, however, is extant.[40]
Burgess and his wife had occupied a noisy apartment where privacy was minimal, and this caused resentment. Following a dispute with the Malay College's principal about this, Burgess was reposted to the Malay Teachers' Training College atKota Bharu, Kelantan.[41] Burgess attained fluency inMalay, spoken and written, achieving distinction in the examinations in the language set by theColonial Office. He was rewarded with a salary increase for his proficiency in the language.
Burgess was an education officer at the Malay Teachers' Training College 1955 and 1958.
After a brief period of leave in Britain during 1958, Burgess took up a further Eastern post, this time at theSultan Omar Ali Saifuddien College inBandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. Brunei had been a British protectorate since 1888, and was not to achieve independence until 1984. In the sultanate, Burgess sketched the novel that, when it was published in 1961, was to be entitledDevil of a State and, although it dealt with Brunei, to avoid libel the action had to be transposed to an imaginary East African territory similar toZanzibar, namedDunia. In his autobiographyLittle Wilson and Big God (1987), Burgess wrote:[43]
This novel was, is, about Brunei, which was renamedNaraka, Malay-Sanskrit for "hell". Little invention was needed to contrive a large cast of unbelievable characters and a number of interwoven plots. Though completed in 1958, the work was not published until 1961, for what it was worth it was made a choice of the book society.Heinemann, my publisher, was doubtful about publishing it: it might be libellous. I had to change the setting from Brunei to an East African one. Heinemann was right to be timorous. In early 1958,The Enemy in the Blanket appeared and at once provoked a libel suit.
About this time, Burgess collapsed in a Brunei classroom while teaching history and was diagnosed as having an inoperable brain tumour.[21] Burgess was given just a year to live, prompting him to write several novels to get money to provide for his widow.[21] He gave a different account, however, toJeremy Isaacs in aFace to Face interview on the BBCThe Late Show (21 March 1989). He said "Looking back now I see that I was driven out of theColonial Service. I think possibly for political reasons that were disguised as clinical reasons".[44] He alluded to this in an interview with Don Swaim, explaining that his wife Lynne had said something "obscene" to theDuke of Edinburgh during an official visit, and the colonial authorities turned against him.[45][46] He had already earned their displeasure, he told Swaim, by writing articles in the newspaper in support of the revolutionary opposition party theParti Rakyat Brunei, and for his friendship with its leaderDr. Azahari.[45][46] Burgess's biographers attribute the incident to the author's notoriousmythomania.Geoffrey Grigson writes:[37]
He was, however, suffering from the effects of prolonged heavy drinking (and associated poor nutrition), of the often oppressive south-east Asian climate, of chronic constipation, and of overwork and professional disappointment. As he put it, the scions of the sultans and of the élite in Brunei "did not wish to be taught", because the free-flowing abundance of oil guaranteed their income and privileged status. He may also have wished for a pretext to abandon teaching and get going full-time as a writer, having made a late start.
Burgess was invalided home in 1959[47] and relieved of his position in Brunei. He spent some time in the neurological ward of a London hospital (seeThe Doctor is Sick) where he underwent cerebral tests that found no illness. On discharge, benefiting from a sum of money which Lynne Burgess had inherited from her father, together with their savings built up over six years in the East, he decided to become a full-time writer. The couple lived first in an apartment inHove, near Brighton. They later moved to a semi-detached house called "Applegarth" inEtchingham, about four miles from Bateman's whereRudyard Kipling had lived inBurwash, and one mile from theRobertsbridge home ofMalcolm Muggeridge.[48] Upon the death of Burgess's father-in-law, the couple used their inheritance to decamp to a terraced town house inChiswick. This provided convenient access to theBBC Television Centre where he later became a frequent guest. During these years Burgess became a regular drinking partner of the novelistWilliam S. Burroughs. Their meetings took place in London andTangiers.[49]
A sea voyage the couple took with the Baltic Line fromTilbury toLeningrad in June 1961[50] resulted in the novelHoney for the Bears. He wrote in his autobiographicalYou've Had Your Time (1990), that in re-learningRussian at this time, he found inspiration for the Russian-based slangNadsat that he created forA Clockwork Orange, going on to note, "I would resist to the limit any publisher's demand that a glossary be provided."[51][Notes 1]
Liana Macellari, anItalian translator twelve years younger than Burgess, came across his novelsInside Mr. Enderby andA Clockwork Orange, while writing about English fiction.[52] The two first met in 1963 over lunch inChiswick and began an affair. In 1964, Liana gave birth to Burgess's son, Paolo Andrea. The affair was hidden from Burgess'salcoholic wife, whom he refused to leave for fear of offending his cousin (by Burgess's stepmother, Margaret Dwyer Wilson),George Dwyer, theRoman Catholic Bishop of Leeds.[52]
Lynne Burgess died fromcirrhosis of the liver, on 20 March 1968.[7] Six months later, in September 1968, Burgess married Liana, acknowledging her four-year-old boy as his own, although the birth certificate listed Roy Halliday, Liana's former partner, as the father.[52] Paolo Andrea (also known as Andrew Burgess Wilson) died in London in 2002, aged 37.[53] Liana died in 2007.[52]
Burgess was a Conservative (though, as he clarified in an interview withThe Paris Review, his political views could be considered "a kind ofanarchism", since his ideal of a "CatholicJacobiteimperialmonarch" was not practicable) a(lapsed) Catholic and monarchist, harbouring a distaste for allrepublics.[54] He believedsocialism for the most part was "ridiculous" but did "concede thatsocialised medicine is a priority in any civilised country today".[54] To avoid the 90% tax the family would have incurred because of their high income, they left Britain and toured Europe in aBedford Dormobile motor-home. During their travels through France and across theAlps, Burgess wrote in the back of the van as Liana drove.
In this period, he wrote novels and produced film scripts forLew Grade andFranco Zeffirelli.[52] His first place of residence after leaving England wasLija, Malta (1968–70). The negative reaction from a lecture that Burgess delivered to an audience of Catholic priests in Malta precipitated a move by the couple to Italy[52] after the Maltese government confiscated the property.[13] (He would go on to fictionalise these events inEarthly Powers a decade later.[13]) The Burgesses maintained a flat in Rome, a country house inBracciano, and a property in Montalbuccio. On hearing rumours of amafia plot to kidnap Paolo Andrea while the family was staying in Rome, Burgess decided to move toMonaco in 1975.[55] Burgess was also motivated to move to thetax haven of Monaco, as the country did not levyincome tax, and widows were exempt fromdeath duties, a form of taxation on their husband's estates.[56] The couple also had a villa in France, atCallian, Var,Provence.[57]
In May 1988, Burgess made anextended appearance with, among others,Andrea Dworkin on the episodeWhat Is Sex For? of the discussion programmeAfter Dark. He spoke at one point about divorce:
Liking involves no discipline; love does ... A marriage, say that lasts twenty years or more, is a kind of civilisation, a kind of microcosm – it develops its own language, its own semiotics, its own slang, its own shorthand ... sex is part of it, part of the semiotics. To destroy, wantonly, such a relationship, is like destroying a whole civilisation.[58]
Although Burgess lived not far fromGraham Greene, whose house was inAntibes, Greene became aggrieved shortly before his death by comments in newspaper articles by Burgess and broke off all contact.[37]Gore Vidal revealed in his 2006 memoirPoint to Point Navigation that Greene disapproved of Burgess's appearance on various European television stations to discuss his (Burgess's) books.[37] Vidal recounts that Greene apparently regarded a willingness to appear on television as something that ought to be beneath a writer's dignity.[37] "He talks about his books," Vidal quotes an exasperated Greene as saying.[37] During this time, Burgess spent much time at his chalet 2 km (1.2 mi) outsideLugano, Switzerland.
Burgess's grave marker at theColumbarium in Monaco's cemetery
Although Burgess wrote that he expected to "die somewhere in the Mediterranean lands, with an inaccurate obituary in theNice-Matin, unmourned, soon forgotten",[59] he returned to die inTwickenham, an outer suburb of London, where he owned a house. Burgess died on 22 November 1993 fromlung cancer, at theHospital of St John & St Elizabeth in London. His ashes were inurned at theMonaco Cemetery.
The epitaph on Burgess's marble memorial stone, reads: "Abba Abba", which means "Father, father" in Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic languages and is pronounced byChrist during his agony inGethsemane (Mark 14:36) as he prays God to spare him. It is alsothe title of Burgess's 22nd novel, concerning the death ofJohn Keats. Eulogies at his memorial service atSt Paul's, Covent Garden, London, in 1994 were delivered by the journalistAuberon Waugh and the novelistWilliam Boyd.[citation needed]The Times obituary heralded the author as "a great moralist".[60] His estate was worth US$3 million and included a large European property portfolio of houses and apartments.[52]
His Malayan trilogyThe Long Day Wanes was Burgess's first published fiction. Its three books areTime for a Tiger,The Enemy in the Blanket andBeds in the East.Devil of a State is a follow-on to the trilogy, set in a fictionalised version ofBrunei. It was Burgess's ambition to become "the true fictional expert on Malaya".[citation needed] In these works, Burgess was working in the tradition established byKipling forBritish India, andConrad andMaugham forSoutheast Asia. Burgess operated more in the mode of Orwell, who had a good command ofUrdu andBurmese (necessary for Orwell's work as a police officer) and Kipling, who spokeHindi (having learnt it as a child). Like many of his fellow English expatriates in Asia, Burgess had excellent spoken and written command of his operative language(s), both as a novelist and as a speaker, includingMalay.
His dystopian novel,A Clockwork Orange, was published in 1962. It was inspired initially by an incident during theLondon Blitz ofWorld War II in which his wife Lynne was robbed, assaulted, and violated by deserters from theUS Army in London during theblackout. The event may have contributed to her subsequent miscarriage. The book was an examination of free will and morality. The younganti-hero,Alex, captured after a short career of violence and mayhem, undergoes a course ofaversion therapy treatment to curb his violent tendencies. This results in making him defenceless against other people and unable to enjoy some of his favourite music that, besides violence, had been an intense pleasure for him. In the non-fiction bookFlame into Being (1985), Burgess describedA Clockwork Orange as "a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks. It became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence". He added, "the film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die". In a 1980 BBC interview, Burgess distanced himself from the novel and cinematic adaptations. Near the time of publication, the final chapter was cut from the American edition of the book.[citation needed]
Burgess had writtenA Clockwork Orange with 21 chapters, meaning to match theage of majority. "21 is the symbol of human maturity, or used to be, since at 21 you got to vote and assumed adult responsibility", Burgess wrote in a foreword for a 1986 edition. Needing money and thinking that the publisher was "being charitable in accepting the work at all," Burgess accepted the deal and allowedA Clockwork Orange to be published in the US with the twenty-first chapter omitted. Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation ofA Clockwork Orange was based on the American edition, and thus helped to perpetuate the loss of the last chapter. In 2021, The International Anthony Burgess Foundation premiered a webpage cataloguing various stage productions of "A Clockwork Orange" from around the world.[62]
InMartin Seymour-Smith'sNovels and Novelists: A Guide to the World of Fiction, Burgess related that he would often prepare a synopsis with a name-list before beginning a project. Seymour-Smith wrote:[63]
Burgess believes overplanning is fatal to creativity and regards his unconscious mind and the act of writing itself as indispensable guides. He does not produce a draft of a whole novel but prefers to get one page finished before he goes on to the next, which involves a good deal of revision and correction.
Nothing Like the Sun is a fictional recreation ofShakespeare's love-life and an examination of the supposedly partly syphilitic sources of the bard's imaginative vision. The novel, which drew onEdgar I. Fripp's 1938 biographyShakespeare, Man and Artist, won critical acclaim and placed Burgess among the first rank novelists of his generation.M/F (1971) was listed by the writer himself as one of the works of which he was most proud.Beard's Roman Women was revealing on a personal level, dealing with the death of his first wife, his bereavement, and the affair that led to his second marriage. InNapoleon Symphony, Burgess broughtBonaparte to life by shaping the novel's structure toBeethoven'sEroica symphony. The novel contains a portrait of anArab andMuslim society under occupation by a Christian western power (Egypt byCatholicFrance). In the 1980s, religious themes began to feature heavily (The Kingdom of the Wicked,Man of Nazareth,Earthly Powers). Though Burgess lapsed from Catholicism early in his youth, the influence of the Catholic "training" and worldview remained strong in his work all his life. This is notable in the discussion of free will inA Clockwork Orange, and in the apocalyptic vision of devastating changes in the Catholic Church – due to what can be understood as Satanic influence – inEarthly Powers (1980).
Burgess announced in a 1972 interview that he was writing a novel about theBlack Prince which incorporatedJohn Dos Passos's narrative techniques, although he never finished writing it.[54] After Burgess's death, English writerAdam Roberts completed the novel, and it was published in 2018 under the titleThe Black Prince.[64] In 2019, a previously unpublished analysis ofA Clockwork Orange was discovered titled, "The Clockwork Condition".[65] It is structured as Burgess's philosophical musings on the novel that won him so much acclaim.
Burgess started his career as a critic. HisEnglish Literature, A Survey for Students was aimed at newcomers to the subject. He followed this withThe Novel To-day (Longmans, 1963) andThe Novel Now: A Student's Guide to Contemporary Fiction (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1967). He wrote theJoyce studiesHere Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (also published asRe Joyce) andJoysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce. Also published wasA Shorter "Finnegans Wake", Burgess's abridgement. His 1970Encyclopædia Britannica entry on the novel (under "Novel, the"[66]) is regarded[by whom?] as a classic of the genre. Burgess wrote full-length critical studies of William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway and D. H. Lawrence, as well asNinety-nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939.[67]
Burgess wrote many unpublished scripts, includingWill! orThe Bawdy Bard aboutShakespeare, based on the novelNothing Like The Sun. Encouraged by the success ofTremor of Intent (a parody ofJames Bond adventures), Burgess wrote a screenplay forThe Spy Who Loved Me featuring characters from and a similar tone to the novel.[68] It had Bond fighting the criminal organisation CHAOS inSingapore to try to stop an assassination ofQueen Elizabeth II using surgically implanted bombs atSydney Opera House. It was described as "an outrageous medley of sadism,hypnosis,acupuncture, and international terrorism".[69] His screenplay was rejected, although the huge submarine silo seen in the finished film was reportedly Burgess's inspiration.[70]
He wrote his first play in 1951, calledThe Eve of Saint Venus. There are no records of the play being performed, and in 1964 he turned the text into a novella. Throughout his life he wrote multiple adaptations and translations for theatre. His most famous workA Clockwork Orange, he adapted for the stage under the titleA Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music. An expanded edition of this play, with a facsimile of the handwritten score, appeared in 1999;A Clockwork Orange 2004, adapted from Burgess's novel by the directorRon Daniels and published byArrow Books, was produced at theBarbican Theatre in London in 1990, with music byThe Edge fromU2.[71]
His other famous translations include the English version ofCyrano de Bergerac byEdmond Rostand. Recently two of his until now unpublished translations were published by Salamander Street, which the Foundation called a 'significant literary discovery'.[72] One isMiser! Miser! A translation ofMolière'sThe Miser. Although the original French play is written in prose, Burgess remakes it in a mixture of verse and prose, in the style of his famous adaptation ofCyrano de Bergerac.[73] The other work isChatsky, subtitled'The Importance of Being Stupid' based onWoe from Wit byAlexander Griboyedov. InChatsky, Burgess remakes a classic Russian play in the spirit ofOscar Wilde.[73]
An accomplished musician, Burgess composed regularly throughout his life, and once said: "I wish people would think of me as a musician who writes novels, instead of a novelist who writes music on the side."[74] He wrote more than 250 compositions in a variety of forms, including symphonies, concertos, chamber music, piano music, and works for the theatre.[6] His early introduction to music is lightly disguised as fiction in his novelThe Pianoplayers (1986), and Burgess identified the piano as his main instrument.[75] Many of his unpublished compositions are listed inThis Man and Music (1982).[6]
Burgess began composing seriously while in the army during the war, and then while working as a teacher inMalaya, but could not earn a living from it. His early symphony,Sinfoni Melayu (now lost), was an attempt "to combine the musical elements of the country [Malaya] into a synthetic language which called on native drums and xylophones".[76] A second symphony has also been lost. But his Symphony No 3 in C was commissioned by the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra in 1974, resulting in the first public performance of an orchestral work by Burgess – a momentous occasion for the composer which spurred him on to renew his composing activities with other large scale works, including a violin concerto forYehudi Menuhin which remained unperformed due to the violinist's death.[77] More recently, the Symphony was broadcast onBBC Radio 3 as part of the Manchester International Festival in July 2017.[78]
He wrote a good deal of chamber and instrumental music. A recently recovered work is a string quartet from 1980, influenced byDmitri Shostakovich, which unexpectedly turned up in the archive of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.[79] For piano, Burgess composed his most substantial body of musical writing, including a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues,The Bad-Tempered Electronic Keyboard (1985), which has been recorded byStephane Ginsburgh.[80] The Prima Facia label has released two CDs of his piano music: Vol. 1 (2015) and Vol. 2 (2025).[81]
Burgess also wrote extensively for the recorder as his son played the instrument. Several works for recorder and piano, including the Sonata No. 1, Sonatina andTre Pezzetti, have been recorded byJohn Turner with pianist Harvey Davies.[82] His collected guitar quartets have also been recorded by the Mēla Guitar Quartet.[83]
Burgess composed the operettaBlooms of Dublin in 1982, adapting the libretto fromJames Joyce'sUlysses. It is a free interpretation of Joyce's text, with changes and interpolations by Burgess himself, all set to original music that blends opera withGilbert and Sullivan andmusic hall styles. The musical was televised by the BBC, to mixed reviews.[84] He wrote the libretto for the 1973 Broadway musicalCyrano (music byMichael J. Lewis), using his own adaptation of the originalRostand play as his basis.[85] Burgess also produced a translation ofMeilhac andHalévy's libretto toBizet'sCarmen, which was performed by theEnglish National Opera in 1986, and wrote a new libretto forWeber's last operaOberon (1826), reprinted alongside the original inOberon Old and New. It was performed by the Glasgow-basedScottish Opera in 1985, but hasn't been revived since.[86]
Nearly all the writings, fiction and non-fiction, reflect Burgess' musical experiences. Biographical elements concerning musicians, particularly failed composers, occur everywhere. His early novelA Vision of Battlements (1965) concerns Richard Ennis, a composer of symphonies and concertos who is serving in the British army in Gibraltar. His last,Byrne (1995), a novel set in verse form, is about a minor modern composer who enjoys greater success in bed than he does in the concert hall. Fictional works mentioned in the novels often parallel Burgess's own real compositions, and provide a commentary on them, such as the cantataSt Celia's Day, described in the 1976 novelBeard's Roman Women, which surfaced two years after the novel was published as a real Burgess work.
His use of language often highlights sound over meaning – in the made-up, Russian-influenced language "Nadsat" used by the narrator ofA Clockwork Orange, in the wordless film scriptQuest for Fire (1981), where he invents a tribal language that prehistoric man might have spoken, and in the non-fiction work on the sound of language,A Mouthful of Air (1992).[89]
"Burgess's linguistic training", wrote Raymond Chapman and Tom McArthur inThe Oxford Companion to the English Language: "...is shown in dialogue enriched by distinctive pronunciations and the niceties of register".[92] During his years in Malaya, and after he had masteredJawi, the Arabic script adapted for Malay, Burgess taught himself thePersian language, after which he produced a translation of Eliot'sThe Waste Land into Persian (unpublished). He worked on an anthology of the best of English literature translated into Malay, which failed to achieve publication. Burgess's published translations include two versions ofCyrano de Bergerac,[93]Oedipus the King[94] andCarmen.
Burgess's interest in language was reflected in the invented,Anglo-Russian teen slang ofA Clockwork Orange (Nadsat), and in the movieQuest for Fire (1981), for which heinvented a prehistoric language (Ulam) for the characters. His interest is reflected in his characters. InThe Doctor is Sick, Dr Edwin Spindrift is a lecturer in linguistics who escapes from a hospital ward which is peopled, as the critic Saul Maloff put it in a review, with "brain cases who happily exemplify varieties of English speech". Burgess, who had lectured on phonetics at theUniversity of Birmingham in the late 1940s, investigates the field of linguistics inLanguage Made Plain andA Mouthful of Air.
The depth of Burgess's multilingual proficiency came under discussion inRoger Lewis's2002 biography. Lewis claimed that during production in Malaysia of the BBC documentaryA Kind of Failure (1982), Burgess's supposedly fluentMalay was not understood by waitresses at a restaurant where they were filming. It was claimed that the documentary's director deliberately kept these moments intact in the film to expose Burgess's linguistic pretensions. A letter from David Wallace that appeared in the magazine of the LondonIndependent on Sunday newspaper on 25 November 2002 shed light on the affair. Wallace's letter read, in part:
... the tale was inaccurate. It tells of Burgess, the great linguist, "bellowing Malay at a succession of Malayan waitresses" but "unable to make himself understood". The source of this tale was a 20-year-old BBC documentary ... [The suggestion was] that the director left the scene in, in order to poke fun at the great author. Not so, and I can be sure, as I was that director ... The story as seen on television made it clear that Burgess knew that these waitresses were not Malay. It was a Chinese restaurant and Burgess's point was that the ethnic Chinese had little time for the government-enforced national language,Bahasa Malaysia [Malay]. Burgess may well have had an accent, but he did speak the language; it was the girls in question who did not.
Lewis may not have been fully aware of the fact that a quarter of Malaysia's population is made up ofHokkien- andCantonese-speakingChinese. However, Malay had been installed as the National Language with the passing of theLanguage Act of 1967. By 1982 allnational primary and secondary schools in Malaysia would have been teaching withBahasa Melayu as a base language (seeHarold Crouch,Government and Society in Malaysia, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996).
The largest archive of Anthony Burgess's belongings is housed at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation inManchester, UK. The holdings include: handwritten journals and diaries; over 8000 books from Burgess's personal library; manuscripts of novels, journalism and musical compositions; professional and private photographs dating from between 1918 and 1993; an extensive archive of sound recordings; Burgess's music collection; furniture; musical instruments including two of Burgess's pianos; and correspondence that includes letters fromAngela Carter,Graham Greene,Thomas Pynchon and other notable writers and publishers.[95] The International Anthony Burgess Foundation was established by Burgess's widow, Liana, in 2003.
Beginning in 1995, Burgess's widow sold a large archive of his papers at theHarry Ransom Center at theUniversity of Texas at Austin with several additions made in subsequent years.[96] Comprising over 136 boxes, the archive includes typed and handwritten manuscripts, sheet music, correspondence, clippings, contracts and legal documents, appointment books, magazines, photographs, and personal effects.
A substantial amount of unpublished and unproduced music compositions is included in the collection, along with a small number of audio recordings of Burgess's interviews and performances of his work.[97] Over 90 books from Burgess's library can also be found in the Ransom Center's holdings.[98] In 2014, the Ransom Center added the archive of Burgess's long-time agent Gabriele Pantucci, which also includes substantial manuscripts, sheet music, correspondence, and contracts.[99] Burgess's archive at the Ransom Center is supplemented by significant archives of artists Burgess admired includingJames Joyce,Graham Greene andD. H. Lawrence.
A small collection of papers, musical manuscripts and other items was deposited with theUniversity of Angers in 1998. Its present whereabouts are unclear.[100][101]
The International Anthony Burgess Foundation operates a performance space and café-bar at 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester.[103]
TheUniversity of Manchester unveiled a plaque in October 2012 that reads: "The University of Manchester commemorates Anthony Burgess, 1917–1993, Writer and Composer, Graduate, BA English 1940". It was the first monument to Burgess in the United Kingdom.[104]
The annual Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is named in his honour.[105]
^A British edition ofA Clockwork Orange (Penguin 1972;ISBN0-14-003219-3) and at least one American edition did have a glossary. A note added: "For help with the Russian, I am indebted to the kindness of my colleague Nora Montesinos and a number of correspondents."
^Craik, Roger (January 2003). "'Bog or God' in A Clockwork Orange".ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews.16 (4):51–54.doi:10.1080/08957690309598481.S2CID162676494.
^Field, Matthew (2015).Some kind of hero : 007 : the remarkable story of the James Bond films. Ajay Chowdhury. Stroud, Gloucestershire.ISBN978-0-7509-6421-0.OCLC930556527.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Barnes, Alan (2003).Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang! The Unofficial James Bond 007 Film Companion. Batsford.ISBN978-0-7134-8645-2.
^abThe International Anthony Burgess Foundation."Playwright".The International Anthony Burgess Foundation. Retrieved27 February 2024.
^Rostand, Edmond; Anthony Burgess (1991).Cyrano de Bergerac, translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess (New ed.). Nick Hern Books.ISBN978-1-85459-117-3.
^Sophocles (1972).Oedipus the King. Translated by Anthony Burgess. University of Minnesota Press.ISBN978-0-8166-0667-2.
Geoffrey Aggeler,Anthony Burgess: The Artist as Novelist (Alabama, 1979,ISBN978-0-8173-7106-7).
Boytinck, Paul.Anthony Burgess: An Annotated Bibliography and Reference Guide. New York, London: Garland Publishing, 1985. xxvi, 349 pp. Includes introduction, chronology and index,ISBN978-0-8240-9135-4.
Anthony Burgess, "The Clockwork Condition".The New Yorker. June 4 & 11, 2012. pp. 69–76.
Burgess, Anthony (2020). Jonathan Mann (ed.).Collected Poems. Carcanet Press.ISBN978-1-80017-013-1.
The largest collection of Burgess's papers and belongings, including literary and musical papers, is archived at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation (IABF) in Manchester.
"Anthony Burgess fonds".McMaster University Library. The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections. Archived fromthe original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved5 January 2016.
