Anthony Burgess Biography

2 Pages 516 Words

John Anthony Burgess Wilson was born on February 25th, 1917 in Manchester, England. Most people do not recognize the name John Wilson as a famous writer or musician. That is mainly because John Wilson used his middle names as his pen name, Anthony Burgess. Anthony, as he will here on out be referred to as, was raised in a small house by his father, a book keeper and avid pianist, without a mother who died early in Anthony’s life by the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic.
Anthony attended multiple schools including Manchester University where he studied the written language closely, as well as foreign languages. Anthony could speak French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Welsh as well as some Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Persian and of course, English. After school, Anthony spent six years as a war-time soldier, and then went into education, where he worked as an education officer after the 2nd world war, and worked for many years until one he collapsed in a classroom. Unfortunately, the collapse was due to a fatal brain tumor, which left him with short time left to live. Anthony decided to live the rest of his fading life doing what he loved to do, and that was writing. Fortunately, Anthony was able to fight the cancer for decades longer than expected; allowing him to write more novels and symphonies.
Anthony wrote over 50 books in his lifetime with subjects from everything such as the fictional dystopias such as A Clockwork Orange, and The Wanting Seed to biographies such as Here Comes Everybody, a book about the life of James Joyce. Anthony spent much of his time, or what was left after writing, composing music. He even structured one of his novels, The Napoleon Symphony, around Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, which shows his deep appreciation for classical music.
Though Anthony loved music, he will forever be known for his writing. Especially A Clockwork Orange, which he has been prai...