A Clockwork Orange – 20 Facts about Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess is probably best known for his futuristic and extremely violent 1962 Dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange which achieved cult status when it was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. However it may surprise you to find out that this book is just a very tiny part of who Anthony Burgess was.

We have gathered together some fascinating facts about Burgess the author, the husband, and the man behind the Droogs!

A Clockwork Orange US
A Clockwork Orange UK

• During the Spanish Civil War, Anthony Burgess was imprisoned for calling Franco a filthy swine.
• He hated Stanley Kubrick’s film of A Clockwork Orange and actually walked out of the premiere claiming it was ‘too violent’.
• He was born John Wilson; Anthony was his confirmation name and he took his mother’s maiden name Burgess as his surname.
• He could speak 10 languages, French, German, Russian, Malay, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Welsh, Chinese, Swedish, along with a little Hebrew and a smattering of others.
• Which is probably a good job as he lived in Spain, Malta, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, the United States and Malaysia.

• Burgess lost both his mother and his sister whilst very young and grew up with a cruel and unloving stepmother.
• Not only this but he was mercilessly bullied throughout his childhood and his first sexual experience was an abusive one perpetrated by an older woman.
• To overcome these traumas Burgess turned to music and is now considered an important musical discovery; with extensive pieces of music, from symphonies to string pieces being compared to Elgar.
• Burgess is considered to be a noted expert on Joyce, Marlowe and Shakespeare and has written books about all three of them.
• He only turned to writing at the relatively late age of 40 after being diagnosed with a terminal tumour in his brain and being given a year to live.

‘Mr W.S.: A Ballet on the Career of William Shakespeare’ (Anthony Burgess, 1979). Paul Phillips conducting.

via GIPHY

• Burgess made up an entirely new language in A Clockwork Orange using the Slavic languages as a model.
• He was a self driven workaholic and would often write more than one book at a time and then compose music in the evenings to relax.
• During WW2 Burgess worked in an insane asylum, allegedly he was also forced to observe an autopsy.
• Burgess would often say things publicly with the sole aim to shock. He was once awarded the male chauvinist pig of the year award by a feminist press.
• Despite this, in real life Burgess was generous and loyal to a fault, even to those undeserving with him often being described by friends as unassuming, modest and courageous.

• Soylent Green, the futuristic cannibal movie starring Charlton Heston, was based on a story by Burgess called The Wanting Seed.
• He was an excellent cook with his speciality being curries of all kinds.
• Amazingly Burgess used the real-life rape of his own wife, Lynne, as a model for the rape scene in A Clockwork Orange.
• Although recognised for A Clockwork Orange, Burgess wrote over 35 novels, many librettos and screenplays and was a literary critic.
• He was given one year to live for a second time in 1992 and once again courageously fought the diagnosis, but this time he sadly lost. On November 22nd, 1993, he died of lung cancer in London, aged 76.

The Wanting Seed US
The Wanting Seed UK