The Ink Trade: Selected Journalism 1961-1993

By Anthony Burgess

'The title of journalist is probably very noble, but I lay no real claim to it. I am, I think, a novelist and a musical composer manqué: I make no other pretensions …' Anthony Burgess
Despite his modest claims, Anthony Burgess was an enormously prolific journalist. During his life he published two substantial collections of journalism, Urgent Copy (1968) and Homage to Qwert Yuiop (1986); a posthumous collection of occasional essays, One Man's Chorus, was published in 1998. These collections are now out of print, and Burgess's journalism, a key part of his prodigious output, has fallen into neglect.
The Ink Trade is a brilliant new selection of his reviews and articles, some savage, some crucial in establishing new writers, new tastes and trends. Between 1959 and his death in 1993 Burgess contributed to newspapers and periodicals around the world: he was provocative, informative, entertaining, extravagant, and always readable.
Editor Will Carr presents a wealth of unpublished and uncollected material.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lives and Letters
• Release date: May 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781784103934

Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917. From 1954 to 1960 he was stationed in Malaysia as an education officer and during this time he started writing The Malayan Trilogy. He was an author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. Diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in 1959, Burgess became a full-time writer and went on to write a book a year up until his death in 1993. His many works include: The Complete Enderby, Tremor of Intent and The Kingdom of the Wicked, as well as works for the stage such as Blooms of Dublin: A Musical Play Based On James Joyce's Ulysses (1986), and an adaptation of his own novel, A Clockwork Orange, produced in 1987.