Anthony Burgess

The Eve of Saint Venus is a novella, or, as he put it, "opusculum", by Anthony Burgess on the theme of marriage. It was first published in 1964. A new edition of the book, which Burgess described as a "tribute to matrimony", was dedicated to the Prince and Princess of Wales, and published in 1981, the year of their …

Who, I ask you, wants to drag his bones out of the earth, reclothed in flesh which, in some foul magic of reversal, is regurgitated by the worms, in order that his eyes may see God? Who, I ask you, wants to live for ever? Sadoc son of Azor, a retired shipping clerk lying diseased and dying on the outreaches of the …

The Pianoplayers is a 1986 novel by Anthony Burgess, drawing heavily on his memories of his father, a pub piano-player. The narrator, Ellen Henshaw, is a prostitute who later becomes a madam. Her father, Billy, plays the piano in the cinema, accompanying silent movies. it was published by Arbor House in the US, and …

The Right to an Answer is a darkly comic 1960 novel by Anthony Burgess, the first of his repatriate years. One of its themes is the disillusionment of the returning exile. The critic William H Pritchard described the novel in a 1966 publication as "surely Burgess' most engaging novel".

Set in the near future, The Wanting Seed is a Malthusian comedy about the strange world overpopulation will produce. Tristram Foxe and his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, live in their skyscraper world where official family limitation glorifies homosexuality. Eventually, their world is transformed into a chaos of cannibalistic …