Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) was often described as a polymath. He wrote novels in a variety of forms (dystopian, comic, satirical, naturalistic, historical, among others), screenplays, poetry, memoirs, and, probably closest to his heart, music. He was born into a secure lower middle class life in Manchester, United Kingdom. An alienating childhood seemed to begin a pattern of Burgess himself upsetting any advantages or positions he possessed, often flouting authority, often getting the short end of the stick, almost always displaying his ferocious intellect and astonishing linguistic skills. He was larger than life, and he cultivated that reputation. Despite his ego, his skill more often than not matched his estimation of himself, and his charm of self-possession would carry the reader along irresistibly. A Clockwork Orange, an uncharacteristic novel if anything could be called that for Burgess, became his calling card, his tag.
The University of Manchester Press, with the cooperation and sponsorship of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, is carrying out a last wish of his: a fine uniform edition of his complete works. The standards set by the first six are very high: fine binding, excellent introductions, and superb notes and annotations by scholars. A new edition of A Clockwork Orange, perhaps at long last satisfactory to the author even in his afterlife is now available with a restored text.
A Vision of Battlements
A Vision of Battlements
A Vision of Battlements is the first novel by the writer and composer Anthony Burgess, who was born in Manchester in 1917. Set in Gibraltar during the Second World War, the book follows the fortunes of Richard Ennis, an army sergeant and incipient composer who dreams of composing great music and building a new cultural world after the end of the war. Following the example of his literary hero, James Joyce, Burgess takes the structure of his book from Virgil's Aeneid. The result is, like Joyce's Ulysses, a comic rewriting of a classical epic, whose critique of the Army and the postwar settlement is sharp and assured. The Irwell Edition is the first publication of Burgess's forgotten masterpiece since 1965. This new edition includes an introduction and notes by Andrew Biswell, author of a prize-winning biography of Anthony Burgess.