A Clockwork Orange (Norton Critical Editions)

Description

“A brilliant novel . . . a savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds.” —New York Times

“Anthony Burgess has written what looks like a nasty little shocker, but is really that rare thing in English letters: a philosophical novel.” —Time

A terrifying tale about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom, A Clockwork Orange became an instant classic when it was published in 1962 and has remained so ever since. Anthony Burgess takes us on a journey to a nightmarish future where sociopathic criminals rule the night. Brilliantly told in harsh invented slang by the novel’s main character and merciless droog, fifteen-year-old Alex, this influential novel is now available in a student edition.

The Norton Critical Edition of A Clockwork Orange is based on the first British edition and includes Burgess’s original final chapter. It is accompanied by Mark Rawlinson’s preface, explanatory annotations, and textual notes. A glossary of the Russian-origin terms that inspired Alex’s dialect is provided to illustrate the process by which Burgess arrived at the distinctive style of this novel.

“Backgrounds and Contexts” presents a wealth of materials chosen by the editor to enrich the reader’s understanding of this unforgettable work, many of them by Burgess himself. Burgess’s views on writing A Clockwork Orange, its philosophical issues, and the debates over the British edition versus the American edition and the novel versus the film adaptation are all included. Related writings that speak to some of the novel’s central issues—youthful style, behavior modification, and art versus morality—are provided by Paul Rock and Stanley Cohen, B. F. Skinner, John R. Platt, Joost A. M. Meerloo, William Sargent, and George Steiner.

“Criticism” is divided into two sections, one addressing the novel and the other Stanley Kubrick’s film version. Five major reviews of the novel are reprinted along with a wide range of scholarly commentary, including, among others, David Lodge on the American reader; Julie Carson on linguistic invention; Zinovy Zinik on Burgess and the Russian language; Geoffrey Sharpless on education, masculinity, and violence; Shirley Chew on circularity; Patrick Parrinder on dystopias; Robbie B. H. Goh on language and social control; and Steven M. Cahn on freedom. A thorough analysis of the film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange is provided in reviews by Vincent Canby, Pauline Kael, and Christopher Ricks; in Philip Strick and Penelope Houston’s interview with Stanley Kubrick; and in interpretive essays by Don Daniels, Alexander Walker, Philip French, Thomas Elsaesser, Tom Dewe Mathews, and Julian Petley.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

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A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin Classics)

Description

In 1665, the Great Plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 lives. In A Journal of the Plague Year, Defoe vividly chronicles the progress of the epidemic. We follow his fictional narrator through a city transformed-the streets and alleyways deserted, the houses of death with crosses daubed on their doors, the dead-carts on their way to the pits-and encounter the horrified citizens of the city, as fear, isolation, and hysteria take hold. The shocking immediacy of Defoe's description of plague-racked London makes this one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague ever written.

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In 1665, the Great Plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 lives. In A Journal of the Plague Year, Defoe vividly chronicles the progress of the epidemic. We follow his fictional narrator through a city transformed-the streets and alleyways deserted, the houses of death with crosses daubed on their doors, the dead-carts on their way to the pits-and encounter the horrified citizens of the city, as fear, isolation, and hysteria take hold. The shocking immediacy of Defoe's description of plague-racked London makes this one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague ever written.

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Cyrano de Bergerac: by Edmund Rostand translated by Anthony Burgess

Product Details

• Editor-in-chief: Anthony Burgess Author: Edmund Rostand
• Published by Acclamation Books 192 Pages
• by Edmund Rostand translated by Anthony Burgess

Description

This acclaimed adaptation for the stage has garnered such reviews as: "Emotional depth Rostand himself would surely have envied...Burgess' extravagant verse keeps its contours, yet trips off the tongue almost as though it were contemporary speech." -London Times. Performance rights available from Applause.

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Nothing Like the Sun (Norton Paperback Fiction)

Description

Before Shakespeare in Love, there was Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun: a magnificent, bawdy telling of Shakespeare's love life.

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The Wanting Seed (Norton Paperback Fiction)

Description

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 dining-clubs, fantastic fertility rituals, and wars without anger. It is a novel both extravagantly funny and grimly serious.

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Earthly Powers

Description

'Crowded, crammed, bursting with manic erudition, garlicky puns, omnilingual jokes...which meshes the real and personalised history of the twentieth century' - Martin Amis. Kenneth Toomey is an eminent novelist of dubious talent; Don Carlo Campanati is a man of God, a shrewd manipulator who rises through the Vatican to become the architect of church revolution and a candidate for sainthood. These two men are linked not only by family ties but by a common understanding of mankind's frailties. In this epic masterpiece, Anthony Burgess plumbs the depths of the essence of power and the lengths men will go for it.

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