To mark the 50th anniversary of the first release of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, we present a weekly online series Anthony Burgess at the Movies in which we zoom in on Anthony Burgess’s interest in cinema. What Burgess says: ‘This [Alexander] Korda film of the middle 1930s has its faults – […]
2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the first release of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, and 60 years since Anthony Burgess completed his most famous novel. To celebrate the anniversary, we are presenting an online series called The Clockwork Collection, with a focus on A Clockwork Orange. Each month we’ll be sharing […]
Clockwork Controversy: Myth: Mick Jagger once owned the film rights to A Clockwork Orange. Fact: Mick Jagger never owned the rights. But there were rumours that he and the Rolling Stones would play Alex and the droogs. ‘We, the undersigned, do hereby protest with extreme vehemence as well as shattered illusions (in you) the preference […]
Clockwork Controversy: Myth: Anthony Burgess hated Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film of A Clockwork Orange. Fact: Anthony Burgess thought the film was a masterpiece and that Kubrick was a great filmmaker. But Burgess resented having to defend the film on television and in print as it was not his own work. Anthony Burgess had seen Stanley […]
John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger inspired the term ‘angry young men’ to describe a group of writers whose uncompromising and accessible works reflected a disillusionment with British society in the post-war period. Their world was run-down and meagre, and its protagonists were trapped in unfulfilled lives, resenting authority figures whose pretentiousness was […]
Clockwork Controversy: Myth: Andy Warhol bought the film rights to A Clockwork Orange from Anthony Burgess. Fact: Andy Warhol did make a version of A Clockwork Orange, which was called Vinyl – but this was a pirate film. It was made on a shoestring budget at the Factory in 1965. A Clockwork Orange received mixed […]
A Clockwork Orange on Stage is a new exhibition by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation that pays tribute to the amazing work of theatres and theatre-makers worldwide in presenting Anthony Burgess’s most famous novel in performance. The online exhibition showcases images from theatrical adaptations of A Clockwork Orange in many styles and many countries. You’ll […]
Clockwork Controversy: Myth: Anthony Burgess disliked the American ending of his novel, which omitted his final chapter. Fact: Burgess was unsure about how to end his novel from the beginning. He liked the American ending and authorised its publication. It was only later in life that he preferred the British ending. Anthony Burgess’s 1961 […]
One of Anthony Burgess’s first commissions from Penguin Books was to write an introduction to Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1966 as part of the Penguin English Library. His introduction is still available in the current Penguin Classics edition, and it remains a lively and thoughtful preparation for Defoe’s haunting […]
Clockwork Controversy: Myth: Anthony Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange in only three weeks. Fact: Burgess composed his novel over a period of more than 18 months, during which time he visited Russia, devised a new slang, and crafted the book very carefully. It is a complex and intricate work, which continues to be read all […]