International Anthony Burgess Foundation
@anthonyburgess.bsky.social
What's it going to be then, eh? All things Anthony Burgess (author of A Clockwork Orange) from his Estate and Archive in Manchester, UK.
www.anthonyburgess.org
www.anthonyburgess.org
Pinned
🐅 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE 🐅
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
On this week’s newsletter we’re celebrating the 250th birthday of Jane Austen with a piece by Anthony Burgess himself. Find out why he thinks she is ‘formidable’.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-formid...
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-formid...
December 5, 2025 at 10:49 AM
On this week’s newsletter we’re celebrating the 250th birthday of Jane Austen with a piece by Anthony Burgess himself. Find out why he thinks she is ‘formidable’.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-formid...
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-formid...
It's true! Here's Burgess doing 'The Burial of the Dead'. He had an extraordinary memory for poetry. We also have a tape of him reciting all of GM Hopkins's The Wreck of the Deutschland. Someone who was there when it was recorded says he reeled it off from memory.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfg...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfg...
December 4, 2025 at 5:52 PM
It's true! Here's Burgess doing 'The Burial of the Dead'. He had an extraordinary memory for poetry. We also have a tape of him reciting all of GM Hopkins's The Wreck of the Deutschland. Someone who was there when it was recorded says he reeled it off from memory.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfg...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfg...
We have a winner! @marbleicehook.bsky.social correctly answered that the composer most associated with A Clockwork Orange is Anthony Burgess himself. A new volume of his piano works has just been released to buy and stream.
Honourable mention to @rmhayes.bsky.social who was pipped by 3 minutes.
Honourable mention to @rmhayes.bsky.social who was pipped by 3 minutes.
This quiz question about A Clockwork Orange appeared in The Australian newspaper. There is the obvious answer and the more esoteric answer. We are sure that The Australian doesn't have both, but can you name them?
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
December 4, 2025 at 12:51 PM
We have a winner! @marbleicehook.bsky.social correctly answered that the composer most associated with A Clockwork Orange is Anthony Burgess himself. A new volume of his piano works has just been released to buy and stream.
Honourable mention to @rmhayes.bsky.social who was pipped by 3 minutes.
Honourable mention to @rmhayes.bsky.social who was pipped by 3 minutes.
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
This quiz question about A Clockwork Orange appeared in The Australian newspaper. There is the obvious answer and the more esoteric answer. We are sure that The Australian doesn't have both, but can you name them?
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
December 4, 2025 at 10:13 AM
This quiz question about A Clockwork Orange appeared in The Australian newspaper. There is the obvious answer and the more esoteric answer. We are sure that The Australian doesn't have both, but can you name them?
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
This quiz question about A Clockwork Orange appeared in The Australian newspaper. There is the obvious answer and the more esoteric answer. We are sure that The Australian doesn't have both, but can you name them?
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
December 4, 2025 at 10:13 AM
This quiz question about A Clockwork Orange appeared in The Australian newspaper. There is the obvious answer and the more esoteric answer. We are sure that The Australian doesn't have both, but can you name them?
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
We'll give the answer later on, Bragging rights for anyone who gets there before us!
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
🐅 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE 🐅
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
December 3, 2025 at 9:39 AM
🐅 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE 🐅
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
🐅 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE 🐅
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
December 3, 2025 at 9:39 AM
🐅 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE 🐅
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, a dystopian vision of a fascist Britain in THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO by ANGUS WILSON. Writer and academic Marina MacKay guides us through the horrors.
Find wherever you get your podcasts and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
Earlier in this series of Ninety-Nine Novels, we spoke to @clarachambara.bsky.social about R.K. Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets. Claire has written a blog about the novel that expands on some of her thoughts. Very much worth reading for fans of Narayan/S. Asian lit:
3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...
3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...
Rereading R. K. Narayan in a Digital Duniya - 3 Quarks Daily
by Claire Chambers
3quarksdaily.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Earlier in this series of Ninety-Nine Novels, we spoke to @clarachambara.bsky.social about R.K. Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets. Claire has written a blog about the novel that expands on some of her thoughts. Very much worth reading for fans of Narayan/S. Asian lit:
3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...
3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...
On this week's newsletter, Anthony Burgess writes about the operatic works of Benjamin Britten, focussing on the seafaring Billy Budd.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts by and about Anthony Burgess (author of A Clockwork Orange) and more: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-smell-...
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts by and about Anthony Burgess (author of A Clockwork Orange) and more: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-smell-...
November 28, 2025 at 9:15 AM
On this week's newsletter, Anthony Burgess writes about the operatic works of Benjamin Britten, focussing on the seafaring Billy Budd.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts by and about Anthony Burgess (author of A Clockwork Orange) and more: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-smell-...
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts by and about Anthony Burgess (author of A Clockwork Orange) and more: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/the-smell-...
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
🍆 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE🍆
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
November 26, 2025 at 9:48 AM
🍆 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE🍆
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
🍆 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE🍆
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
November 26, 2025 at 9:48 AM
🍆 NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE🍆
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
This week, the thorny issue of PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by PHILIP ROTH. Is the novel more than its reputation? Is it really just about onanism? Roth expert Matthew Shipe helps us find out.
All the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
A writer on a chat show?! ‘Not in a million years,’ you might say, but this week’s newsletter explores Anthony Burgess’s adventures in the world of light entertainment. The past is truly a different country.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
November 21, 2025 at 9:47 AM
A writer on a chat show?! ‘Not in a million years,’ you might say, but this week’s newsletter explores Anthony Burgess’s adventures in the world of light entertainment. The past is truly a different country.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
A writer on a chat show?! ‘Not in a million years,’ you might say, but this week’s newsletter explores Anthony Burgess’s adventures in the world of light entertainment. The past is truly a different country.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
November 21, 2025 at 9:47 AM
A writer on a chat show?! ‘Not in a million years,’ you might say, but this week’s newsletter explores Anthony Burgess’s adventures in the world of light entertainment. The past is truly a different country.
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
Subscribe for FREE for weekly posts: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/chatty-man
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
The International Anthony Burgess Foundation has a new episode in their excellent "Ninety-Nine Novels" podcast featuring me talking about Riddley Walker. You can listen here:
anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
@mcfarland.bsky.social
@russellhoban.bsky.social
@anthonyburgess.bsky.social
anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
@mcfarland.bsky.social
@russellhoban.bsky.social
@anthonyburgess.bsky.social
Ninety-Nine Novels: Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - The International Anthony Burgess Foundation
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 fi...
anthonyburgess.org
November 20, 2025 at 6:15 PM
The International Anthony Burgess Foundation has a new episode in their excellent "Ninety-Nine Novels" podcast featuring me talking about Riddley Walker. You can listen here:
anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
@mcfarland.bsky.social
@russellhoban.bsky.social
@anthonyburgess.bsky.social
anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
@mcfarland.bsky.social
@russellhoban.bsky.social
@anthonyburgess.bsky.social
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
⚙️NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE⚙️
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
November 19, 2025 at 9:25 AM
⚙️NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE⚙️
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
[Happy 86th birthday to solar eclipse photographer and composer Wendy Carlos, known for "Switched-On Bach," A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE SHINING, TRON, and “Peter and the Wolf” with Weird Al Yankovic. Listen to “Switched-On Bach” below.]
archive.org/details/wend...
archive.org/details/wend...
November 14, 2025 at 5:33 PM
[Happy 86th birthday to solar eclipse photographer and composer Wendy Carlos, known for "Switched-On Bach," A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE SHINING, TRON, and “Peter and the Wolf” with Weird Al Yankovic. Listen to “Switched-On Bach” below.]
archive.org/details/wend...
archive.org/details/wend...
⚙️NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE⚙️
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
November 19, 2025 at 9:25 AM
⚙️NEW NINETY-NINE NOVELS EPISODE⚙️
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
A dystopian vision of the future, a young boy in a violent world, a made-up language. No, not A Clockwork Orange, but RIDDLEY WALKER by RUSSELL HOBAN.
At all the usual places and here: www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/n...
Anthony Burgess was a fan of Rushdie's writing. When all the furore over The Satanic Verses happened, Burgess wrote Rushdie a letter of support -- in typical Burgess fashion, it was a lengthy poem in the style of Alexander Pope's 'Essay on Man' and railed against literary censorship.
A book that now makes him "want to hide behind the furniture", a novel full of P2C2Es*, his best novel of the 21st century, and an account of one of his worst experiences: having Harold Pinter fax him his terrible poems.
I ranked Salman Rushdie's best books.
*processes too complicated to explain
I ranked Salman Rushdie's best books.
*processes too complicated to explain
Memoirs, myths and Midnight’s Children: Salman Rushdie’s 10 best books – ranked!
As the author publishes a new story collection, we rate the work that made his name – from his dazzling Booker winner to an account of the 2022 attack that nearly killed him
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Anthony Burgess was a fan of Rushdie's writing. When all the furore over The Satanic Verses happened, Burgess wrote Rushdie a letter of support -- in typical Burgess fashion, it was a lengthy poem in the style of Alexander Pope's 'Essay on Man' and railed against literary censorship.
Luckily, Blooms of Dublin has just been republished alongside Burgess's newly-discovered abridged version of Ulysses: uk.bookshop.org/a/15106/9781...
November 18, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Luckily, Blooms of Dublin has just been republished alongside Burgess's newly-discovered abridged version of Ulysses: uk.bookshop.org/a/15106/9781...
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Anthony Burgess on Terry Wogan makes you realize what a talent we lost: he said the English don't appreciate their writers, they have to give their language away to foreigners: Joyce had to leave Ireland to write the truth of Dublin. He said he's lived abroad so long, English is like a foreign
November 16, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Anthony Burgess on Terry Wogan makes you realize what a talent we lost: he said the English don't appreciate their writers, they have to give their language away to foreigners: Joyce had to leave Ireland to write the truth of Dublin. He said he's lived abroad so long, English is like a foreign
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
It took some very intense zoom meetings and messy pub meet-ups for the three of us to map all the complex plot points of this trilogy out and get it all to make sense and I have to confess there were some pretty fucking heated arguments along the way but I think we made it all work well in the end.
November 17, 2025 at 7:24 AM
It took some very intense zoom meetings and messy pub meet-ups for the three of us to map all the complex plot points of this trilogy out and get it all to make sense and I have to confess there were some pretty fucking heated arguments along the way but I think we made it all work well in the end.
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Actually, intrigued by this story, I once read "Les Oliviers de la Justice" alongside Burgess's translation to see how, and indeed if, he had gorblimeyed it up:
anthonyburgessblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/jean...
anthonyburgessblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/jean...
Jean Pélégri, The Olive-Trees of Justice (1959; 1962)
In You've Had Your Time , Burgess recalls the early 1960s, when impoverishment impelled him to all sorts of literary labour: If I co...
anthonyburgessblog.blogspot.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Actually, intrigued by this story, I once read "Les Oliviers de la Justice" alongside Burgess's translation to see how, and indeed if, he had gorblimeyed it up:
anthonyburgessblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/jean...
anthonyburgessblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/jean...
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
I like the way Anthony Burgess uses "gorblimey" as a verb, here, and would like to see it more widely used.
![Burgess remembering the early 1960s when he worked on literary translation. "I would sometimes be offered a hundred pounds to do the job [translate a foreign-language novel into English] myself. The contract specified ‘good literary English’, whatever that was. Lynne and I stayed up for most of the night on three very minor French novels. With the help of the big Cassell’s dictionary she would rough out the English and I would then gorblimey it into the good literary form required. But Lynne’s tenses were weak, and she would confuse imperfects and conditionals. This would entail cursing retyping and dawn threats of suicide. I sometimes improved the style of the Frenchman, so much so that when The Olive Trees of Justice appeared in America (Les Oliviers de la Justice, by Jean Pelligri) a critoc acclaimed its language and searing imagery and wondered why Anglo Saxon writers could not write like that."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ulkx4memujdk522qvscab5ho/bafkreice3dm67tyuedv4viesgj7hw57bllquy6jmlvz22vwnwdsjibun7a@jpeg)
November 12, 2025 at 6:20 PM
I like the way Anthony Burgess uses "gorblimey" as a verb, here, and would like to see it more widely used.
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess.
Elderly gay writer is asked by a bishop to write a biography of his late brother in law who was the pope. This is a poor description of what it is about, but it changed how I think about a lot of things: Good and evil, faith, the world and our place in it.
Elderly gay writer is asked by a bishop to write a biography of his late brother in law who was the pope. This is a poor description of what it is about, but it changed how I think about a lot of things: Good and evil, faith, the world and our place in it.
performative reading, lack of reading skills, nobody's reading anymore -- NO!
tell me about a book that changed you
for me? the *extremely* ahistorical novel, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY which I read at 13 and was like, "Oh, art can be *everything* to a maker, for good and bad"
tell me about a book that changed you
for me? the *extremely* ahistorical novel, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY which I read at 13 and was like, "Oh, art can be *everything* to a maker, for good and bad"
November 12, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess.
Elderly gay writer is asked by a bishop to write a biography of his late brother in law who was the pope. This is a poor description of what it is about, but it changed how I think about a lot of things: Good and evil, faith, the world and our place in it.
Elderly gay writer is asked by a bishop to write a biography of his late brother in law who was the pope. This is a poor description of what it is about, but it changed how I think about a lot of things: Good and evil, faith, the world and our place in it.
Reposted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Anthony Burgess. Now there's a writer who could do a fire scene. I felt my fingertips getting scorched from holding the pages.
November 11, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Anthony Burgess. Now there's a writer who could do a fire scene. I felt my fingertips getting scorched from holding the pages.