Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 and was educated at the University of Manchester. He originally wanted to be a musician and remained a competent composer. He served as a colonial officer in Malaya and Borneo and his experiences were the basis for his The Malayan Trilogy, his first novels. In 1959 he contracted a”fatal” illness and took up writing to provide some money for his wife. He would live another thirty-four years. His best known work is A Clockwork Orange, which was made into a famous film by Stanley Kubrick. As well as novels and plays, he also wrote about Joyce, Shakespeare, language and music. He was a voracious if occasionally uncritical reader. He died in 1993. His writings are often interesting and fascinating but, at times, inclined to unnecessary frivolity.