BURGESS (Anthony, 1917-1993, Writer and Composer, Author of 'A Clockwork Orange')

Typed letter signed on an air letter form to Mr John Sullivan thanking him for his "kind words about my Malayan books, as also for the invitation to write something about GKC. Incidentally, I probably don't have to apologise for this delay in replying. Your letter has been following me .... I honestly don't think I'm in the position to write the sort of thing you want, though a good deal of it is in my head, especially the Chaucer and Dickens. This is a period of impending nervous breakdown through overwork, appropriate to my time of life, and I can't even control an electric typewriter ... I can of course suggest other people, real scholars, who would do the job well, but you've probably enough candidates ... I do genuinely regret my uselessness ...", 1 side oblong 4to., with original envelope, 10-D 670 West End Avenue, New York 10025, 8th October

In 1954, Burgess had joined the British Colonial Service as a teacher and education officer in Malaya. He devoted some of his free time there to writing "as a sort of gentlemanly hobby, because I knew there wasn't any money in it," and published his first novels: Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East. These became known as The Malayan Trilogy and were later published in one volume as The Long Day Wanes.
Burgess lived for two years in the United States, working as a visiting professor at Princeton University with the creative writing program (1970) and as a distinguished professor at the City College of New York (1972). At City College he was a close colleague and friend of Joseph Heller.

Item Date:  1972

Stock No:  36958      £175

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