In the original dust jacket. Grey cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• We provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list.

The first volume of the two-volume autobiography.

In an extraordinarily candid book of confessions, Anthony Burgess tells the story of a disaffected Manchester Catholic from his birth in 1917 up to 1959 and the commencement of his career as a professional writer. He details his burgeoning awareness of his artistic talent, his relationship with his first wife, his army career and his years as an education officer in Malaya and Borneo.

Review: An absorbing biography but Burgess does not like Homer. As a teacher (very different from any Burgess endured) I greatly enjoyed the accounts of his schools and as a Christian (Celto-catholic and rather despised by him as ‘inauthentic”) I enjoined his cruise out of the faith. I knew nothing of life in the far east and found his account and learned digressions fascinating.

John Anthony Burgess Wilson, FRSL (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer.

Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange remains his best-known novel. In 1971, it was adapted into a controversial film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and Earthly Powers. He wrote librettos and screenplays, including the 1977 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. He worked as a literary critic for several publications, including The Observer and The Guardian, and wrote studies of classic writers, notably James Joyce. A versatile linguist, Burgess lectured in phonetics, and translated Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus Rex, and the opera Carmen, among others. Burgess was nominated and shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973.

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.