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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Anthony Burgess
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(John Anthony Burgess Wilson, b. 1917) Novelist of exceptional range and variety. His first three books, published 1956–9 and known later as The Malayan Trilogy, drew on his experiences as an education officer in Malaya and Brunei in 1954–9. The subsequent Enderby series (four novels 1963–84) follow in comic vein the adventures of Enderby, a poet, in England, Rome, Tangiers and New York. Burgess won a wide following with the short but bold *Clockwork Orange (1962). Earthly Powers (1980) is an erudite and witty panorama spanning much of the 20C; it also has one of the most arresting opening sentences of modern fiction ('It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me').
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Burgess is a prolific reviewer for a wide range of newspapers, in particular the Observer. He is also much involved with music. He is a composer who has had symphonies performed, and he likes to use musical themes in fiction; one of his novels, Napoleon Symphony (1974), is based on the form of Beethoven's 3rd symphony, the Eroica.
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