In this birthday blog post, we consider some of the anniversaries celebrated by Anthony Burgess in his literature and music. 25 February is the 107th anniversary of Anthony Burgess’s birth in Harpurhey, north Manchester. His original name was John Anthony Burgess Wilson. As he writes in Little Wilson and Big God, the first volume of […]
Anthony Burgess published his shorter version of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake in 1966. He was invited to edit the book by Peter du Sautoy, one of Joyce’s executors and a senior publisher at Faber, following the success of Burgess’s BBC television documentary about Joyce, Silence, Exile and Cunning, broadcast the previous year. Faber had already […]
In the second of our blog posts about recent work to preserve the Foundation’s book collection, we focus on books relating to two of Burgess’s favourite writers: James Joyce and the Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791-1823). (Read the previous post here.) Following repair work carried out by the book restorers Formbys, these volumes are […]
When Jorge Luis Borges met Anthony Burgess for the first time, Borges was 77 years old and at the height of his international fame. He had been blind for 23 years. Burgess had just turned sixty, and was much in demand as a screenwriter and public speaker. The venue for their historic meeting was the […]
In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess’s interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess’s list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests. […]
Notes on Anthony Burgess and James Joyce for the Ulysses centenary. Here Comes Everybody Burgess’s introductory guide to James Joyce, described by the author as ‘a sort of pilot commentary,’ was published by Faber in 1965. Burgess guides the reader through each of Joyce’s works, including lesser-known books such as Pomes Pennyeach and Stephen Hero. […]
In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess’s interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess’s list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests. […]
The departure of Daniel Craig from the role of James Bond marks the end of the latest phase in the long-running film series. This blog post looks at some of Anthony Burgess’s responses to Ian Fleming’s most celebrated and enduring fictional character. When Fleming died on 12 August 1964 he had not yet completed The […]
Here at the Burgess Foundation, we are immersed in the world of Anthony Burgess. We revel in finding out small details about his life and career, we scour the archive for previously unknown facts and we have dedicated ourselves to bringing previously unpublished writing into print. We sometimes forget that, because of the sheer number […]
James Joyce’s famous novel Ulysses, published 99 years ago in 1922, takes place on a single day: 16 June 1904. Anthony Burgess celebrates this date in one of the songs from his Ulysses-inspired musical, Blooms of Dublin, with these lyrics: ‘Today / It’s the sixteenth of June today / And from morning till noon / […]