"The noted novelist Anthony Burgess has provided, in this translation and adaptation of the Greek classic, a highly dramatic and forceful piece of work, one which is theatrically effective for present-day audiences. It is the version on which was based a major production by the Guthrie Theater Company under the direction of Michael Langham at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The dialogue, though modern, conveys the feeling of the ancient period....

This fascinating early work by Anthony Burgess is a delightful fantasy, blending classical myth and farce. Displaying a high degree of verbal ingenuity and intelligence, Burgess effortlessly plays with ideas to create a riotous comedy that is ultimately a celebration of love and marriage. It is presented here along with the earlier and similarly themed The Venus of Ille, by Prosper Mérimée. Ambrose and Diana are to be married. Diana, however, is...

The writer exposes his inner life, creative energy, and travel.

Set in postwar Malaya during the turmoil of independence, the colonialists pulling out are personified by Victor Crabbe and his wife, who maintain a steady backward progress to annihilation in this culture which they never learned to understand.

"A genuine master of the mot and the anecdote, Burgess rarely fails to amuse in this generous selection of essays on topics as various as oranges (not only of the clockwork variety), Marilyn Monroe, God, and Yiddish humor (his favorite one-liner, the Jewish matron's response to her son's psychiatrist: "Oedipus Schmoedipus - what's it matter so long as he loves his mother?")." "In other of these candid and sometimes cantankerous pieces written over...