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A delightful and uniquely imaginative tribute to the Bard, incorporating biography, theatrical history, and a vivid recreation of the Elizabethan age.

About the Author

Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 and educated at Xaverian College and Manchester University. He served in the British army from 1940 to 1946 and was a schoolteacher in England before becoming a colonial education officer in 1954. His Malayan trilogy of novels and a history of English literature were published while he was living in Malaya and Brunei.

He became a full-time writer in 1959 and achieved a worldwide reputation as one of the most versatile novelists of his day. His writings include biographies of Shakespeare and Hemingway, critical studies of James Joyce, stage plays, and two volumes of autobiography. His work as a composer and librettist includes the Broadway musical, Cyrano, and Blooms of Dublin, an operetta based on Joyce's Ulysses.

His 33 novels continue to be published all over the world. They include A Clockwork Orange, Nothing Like the Sun, The Complete Enderby, Earthly Powers, Napoleon Symphony, and Beard's Roman Women, a collaboration with the photographer David Robinson.

Anthony Burgess died in London in 1993.

Reviews

"Bright, racy...knowledgeable and humorous, alternately sensible and quirky." -- Terry Eagleton "Anthony Burgess's wonderfully well-stocked mind and essentially wayward spirit are just right for summoning up an apparition of the Bard which is more convincing than most" -- David Holloway Daily Telegraph "Animated by affection and an understanding of the creative imagination that only a creative writer can bring to bear" Atlantic "A smooth-flowing narrative, often enlivened by Anthony Burgess's Joycean appetite for linguistic fantasy" The Economist