Anthony Burgess was born in 1917 in Manchester, England. He studied language at Xaverian College and Manchester University. He had originally applied for a degree in music, but was unable to pass the entrance exams. Burgess considered himself a composer first, one who later turned to literature. Burgess' first novel, A Vision of Battlements (1964), was based on his experiences serving in the British Army. He is perhaps best known for his novel A Clockwork Orange, which was later made into a movie by Stanley Kubrick. In addition to publishing several works of fiction, Burgess also published literary criticism and a linguistics primer. Some of his other titles include The Pianoplayers, This… Man and Music, Enderby, The Kingdom of the Wicked, and Little Wilson and Big God. Burgess was living in Monaco when he died in 1993.
Andrew Biswell wrote his doctoral thesis on Anthony Burgess's fiction and journalism, and is now a lecturer in the English department at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has previously worked as a fiction critic for the Times Literary Supplement, Daily Telegraph, Boston Globe, Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. He lives in Manchester and Aberdeenshire.