7 a bit of dirty twenty-to-one: ‘Twenty-to-one’ is rhyming slang for ‘fun’.
8 the heighth of fashion: The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that ‘heighth’ was a common spelling in the seventeenth century. It is found in English dialect writing as late as the nineteenth century. The Penguin paperback of 1972 misprints this as ‘the height of fashion’ (p. 5), but Burgess was clearly aiming for an archaic-sounding effect. He achieves something similar in his historical novel about the life of Shakespeare, Nothing Like the Sun (1964), which is written in a parody of Shakespearean English.
10 Berti Laski: Melvyn Lasky was, along with Frank Kermode and the poet Stephen Spender, co-editor of the literary magazine Encounter. But this is more likely to be an allusion to Marghanita Laski (1915–88), the Manchester novelist and playwright. She provided more than 250,000 quotations for the four supplements to the Oxford English Dictionary. Her novels included Love on the Supertax (1944) and Little Boy Lost (1949), which was adapted as a musical starring Bing Crosby in 1953. Marghanita Laski had written an unfavourable review of Burgess’s novel The Right to an Answer, published in the Saturday Review on 28 January 1961.
11 Marghanita Boulevard: Another unflattering reference to Marghanita Laski. See note on ‘Berti Laski’ above.
11 Boothby Avenue: Possibly a reference to Sir Brooke Boothby (1744–1824), a minor English poet and translator of Rousseau. Another Boothby appears as a character in Burgess’s first novel, Time for a Tiger (1956). He is the headmaster of the Mansoor School in colonial Malaya, modelled on the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar, where Burgess himself had taught from 1954 until 1955. Boothby is a cruel caricature of Jimmy Howell, the real-life headmaster known to Burgess and disliked by him.
13 hen-korm: originally ‘hen-corm’ in the typescript. In a letter to James Michie of Heinemann dated 25 February 1962, Burgess wrote: ‘There is also the case of “hen-corm” [...] which was silently corrected to “hen-corn”. Now “corm” comes from a Slav-root meaning animal-fodder. So that the reader shall not see a mistake there I’ve changed “corm” to “korm”. Will that be horrorshow?’
14 sammy act: Late nineteenth-century slang; to ‘sam’ or ‘stand sam’ is to pay for a drink. See Jonathon Green, Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang (2000).
14 Amis Avenue: Kingsley Amis, English novelist and critic (1922–95). Burgess and Amis often reviewed each other’s novels, and Amis’s review of A Clockwork Orange (‘Mr Burgess has written a fine farrago of outrageousness’) appeared in the Observer. For Amis on Burgess, see the chapter in his Memoirs (Hutchinson, 1991), pp. 274–8, and various uncomplimentary references in The Letters of Kingsley Amis, edited by Zachary Leader (HarperCollins, 2000).
14 black and suds: Guinness.
14 double firegolds: Firegold is whisky, but this is also an allusion to ‘The Starlight Night’, a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89): ‘O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! [. . .] The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!’ Burgess had memorised all of Hopkins’s poems when he was a schoolboy, and he later set a number of them to music, including ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’. For more detail on these compositions, see Paul Phillips, A Clockwork Counterpoint (Manchester University Press, 2010), pp. 288–9.
15 a bottle of Yank General: Three-star brandy or cognac. Burgess drew three stars in the margin of the typescript at this point, to make the reference to a three-star American general clear.
15 Attlee Avenue: Clement Attlee, Labour Prime Minister from 1945 until 1951. Burgess voted Labour in 1945, and he admired the National Health Service, which was set up by Attlee’s government.
15 rozz patrols: ‘Rozzer’ as slang for ‘policeman’ was first recorded in the 1870s. Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937), one of several slang dictionaries owned by Burgess, suggests that ‘rozzer’ is derived from the Romany ‘roozlo’, meaning ‘strong’.
15 Elvis Presley: Burgess wrote in the margin of the typescript: ‘Will this name be known when book appears?’ Burgess must have found Elvis Presley difficult to avoid while he was working on A Clockwork Orange. According to the trade magazine Record Retailer, Presley’s single ‘It’s Now or Never’ was number one in the UK chart for eight weeks in 1960. ‘Wooden Heart’ and ‘Surrender’, both released in 1961, held the number one position for six weeks and four weeks respectively. Elvis and The Beatles (who received a kicking in Burgess’s 1968 novel, Enderby Outside) represented everything that he hated about popular music and teenage culture.
17 sore athirst: A corruption of the biblical ‘and they were sore afraid’ (Luke 2:9).
18 lip-music: A quotation from St Winefred’s Well, an unfinished play by Gerard Manley Hopkins: ‘While blind men’s eyes shall thirst after daylight, draughts of daylight, / Or deaf ears shall desire that lipmusic that’s lost upon them.’ Burgess later completed this Hopkins play and composed incidental music for a radio production, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 23 December 1989.
24 Priestley Place: J. B. Priestley, English writer and broadcaster (1894–1984), author of The Good Companions (1929), Time and the Conways (1937) and An Inspector Calls (1945), among many other novels, plays and non-fiction works. Burgess discusses Priestley’s writing in The Novel Now (Faber, 1971), pp. 102–3, and in a long review of Vincent Brome’s biography, published in the Times Literary Supplement on 21 October 1988.
28 swordpen: The association between words and swords is present throughout Burgess’s verse translation of Edmond Rostand’s French play Cyrano de Bergerac (1971). Burgess’s long poem ‘The Sword’, about a man who wanders around New York with ‘a British sword sheathed in cherrywood’, was published in Transatlantic Review 23 (Winter 1966–7), pp. 41–3, and reprinted in Burgess, Revolutionary Sonnets and Other Poems, edited by Kevin Jackson (Carcanet, 2002), pp. 32–3.
32 shagged and fagged and fashed: A quotation from ‘The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo’, a dramatic poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins: ‘O why are we so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so fagged, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered.’ In a letter to his mother, dated 5 March 1872, Hopkins wrote: ‘I enclose three northcountry primroses [. . .] They will no doubt look fagged.’
34 a hound-and-horny look of evil: Hound and Horn was an avant-garde literary magazine, founded in 1927 and possibly known to Burgess. Its contributors included Eugene O’Neill and Herbert Read. But the primary meaning here is ‘corny’ (rhyming slang).
37 Wilsonsway: A reference either to Burgess’s real name, John Burgess Wilson, or to the English writer Angus Wilson (1913–91), whose dystopian novel The Old Men at the Zoo was reviewed by Burgess in the Yorkshire Post in 1961.
48 Taylor Place: The historian A. J. P. Taylor (1906–90) taught Burgess and his first wife, Llewela Jones, at Manchester University in the 1930s. According to Taylor’s biographer Adam Sisman, Dylan Thomas (who later had an affair with Llewela during the Second World War) seduced Taylor’s first wife. Alternatively, this may be a reference to the novelist Elizabeth Taylor (1912–75), whose books were said by Burgess to be underestimated by critics. See The Novel Now, p. 214.
49 Ludwig van: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Burgess’s 1974 novel Napoleon Symphony takes its structure from Beethoven’s Eroica symphony. Each episode within the novel corresponds to a passage of music in the score. Beethoven himself appears as one of the characters in Burgess’s novel Mozart and the Wolf Gang (1991), and in ‘Uncle Ludwig’, an unproduced Burgess film script about Beethoven’s uneasy relationship with his nephew. See also The Ninth, a talk about Beethoven broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 14 December 1990.
49 Heaven Seventeen: Originally from Sheffield, the English band Heaven 17 (formed 1980; disbanded 1989) named themselves after one of Burgess’s fictional pop groups. Two of their members, Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware, had previously been part of The Human League. Their hits included ‘Temptation’ and ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’.
49 fuzzy warbles: Andy Partridge, the main songwriter from the band XTC, released a series of albums between 2002 and 2006 under the general title Fuzzy Warbles.
52 Joy being a glorious spark like of heaven: A half-quotation from Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’, which provides the text for the final choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The nineteenth-century English translation known to Burgess is: ‘Joy, thou glorious spark of heaven, / Daughter of Elysium, / Hearts on fire, aroused, enraptured, / To thy sacred shrine we come. / Custom’s bond no more can sever / Those by thy sure magic tied. / All mankind are loving brothers / Where thy sacred wings abide.’
59 One can die but once: A deliberate misquotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths / The valiant never taste of death but once’ (Act II, Scene 2).
61 Victoria Flatblock: Possibly a reference to Victoria Park, the location of Xaverian College in Manchester, where Burgess studied between 1928 and 1935.
68 long hair and [. . .] big flowy cravat: Note that Alex’s appearance, described in the opening chapter, resembles the bust of Beethoven. This identification between Alex and Beethoven reinforces Burgess’s claim (in his 1985 interview with Isaac Bashevis Singer) that Alex will go on to become a great composer after the novel has ended.
70 darkmans: ‘The night’, an example of thieves’ slang, first recorded in the 1560s (OED). ‘Lightmans’ is the day. For Burgess on the language of the Elizabethan underworld, see his essay ‘What Shakespeare Smelt’ in Homage to Qwert Yuiop (Hutchinson, 1986), pp. 264–6.
78 merzky gets: ‘filthy bastards’ (Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang).
80 Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven: A parody of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’. See note on p. 52 above.
81 very cold glazzy: An allusion to the poem ‘Under Ben Bulben’ by W. B. Yeats: ‘Cast a cold eye / On life, on death. / Horseman, pass by!’ We know that Burgess was reading Yeats in the same year that he wrote A Clockwork Orange. His hardback copy of Yeats’s Collected Poems is inscribed ‘jbw [John Burgess Wilson] 1961’.
87 prison charlie: Prison chaplain, a reference to the actor and film director Charlie Chaplin. According to Little Wilson and Big God (1987), the first volume of Burgess’s autobiography, his father had played piano for the brothers Sid and Charlie Chaplin when he was employed by Fred Karno’s theatre company before the First World War. ‘Charlie’ is also a slang expression for an idiot or a charlatan.
92 Ludovico’s Technique: A double reference to Lodovico, the Italian villain of John Webster’s revenge tragedy The White Devil (1612), and to Ludwig van (see note to p. 49, above).
93 Wachet Auf Choral Prelude: J. S. Bach, Cantata number 140, ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’ (1731).
93 poggy: Late nineteenth-century British Army slang. Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang defines ‘poggy’ as ‘rum, or any spiritous liquor’.
93 archibalds: First World War slang for aeroplanes or anti-aircraft guns (Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang).
101 crime in the midst of punishment: An allusion to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, which Burgess read for the first time before travelling to Russia in 1961. In a letter to Diana and Meir Gillon, written while he was working on A Clockwork Orange, Burgess said: ‘I’ve just completed Part One – which is just sheer crime. Now comes punishment. The whole thing’s making me feel rather sick.’
125 Each man kills the thing he loves: Dr Branom is quoting from The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1897) by Oscar Wilde, who was convicted of sodomy in 1895 and imprisoned for two years with hard labour. Burgess later corresponded about Wilde with Richard Ellmann, whose biography Oscar Wilde was published in 1987.
125 the dialect of the tribe: A quotation from the second section of Little Gidding (1942) by T. S. Eliot: ‘Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us / To purify the dialect of the tribe’ (Eliot, Collected Poems 1909–1962, Faber, p. 218). Eliot is quoting ‘Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe’ by the nineteenth-century French poet Stéphane Mallarmé: ‘Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu.’ Eliot’s poem is concerned with what the critic David Moody calls ‘the fruitful dead’. See Moody, Thomas Stearns Eliot: Poet, second edition (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 239, 253.
138 Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear: A quotation from the King James Bible: ‘There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love’ (1 John, 4:18).
140 Joy before the Angels of God: Another biblical quotation: ‘So I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance’ (Luke 15:10).
151 Mozart Number Forty: Burgess later wrote a short story based on Mozart’s Symphony Number 40 (K.550, 1788) and included it in the text of Mozart and the Wolf Gang (1991), pp. 81–91.
153 Dear dead idlewilds, rot not in variform guises: A parody of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
157 You could snuff it on a hundred aspirin: Although an overdose of aspirin can cause liver failure and internal bleeding, it would take more than 250 tablets to achieve these effects in an adult male such as Alex. Burgess appears to have miscalculated here.
174 Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it: A quotation from Voltaire’s letter to d’Alembert, 28 November 1762: ‘Quoi que vous fassiez, écrazez l’infâme.’
175 Rubinstein: Harold Rubinstein was the libel lawyer at William Heinemann, Burgess’s UK publisher. He had dealt with complaints about libel arising from two of Burgess’s previous novels, The Enemy in the Blanket (1958) and The Worm and the Ring (1961).
176 that manner of voice pricks me: OED defines the verb ‘prick’ as ‘To cause sharp mental pain; to sting with sorrow or remorse; to grieve, pain, vex’.
176 We must inflame all hearts: A reference to St Francis Xavier, who gave his name to Xaverian College, where Burgess was educated. In Catholic art, the flaming heart is one of the symbols associated with St Francis.
178 Rest, perturbed spirit: A quotation from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act I, Scene 5). Hamlet says to his father’s ghost: ‘Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.’
192 I was cured all right: Immediately after this sentence, there is a note on the typescript in Burgess’s handwriting: ‘Should we end here? An optional “epilogue” follows.’ Eric Swenson, the publisher at W. W. Norton who was responsible for the 1963 American edition, encouraged Burgess to end the novel at this point, omitting the twenty-first chapter.
202 Felix M.: The composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47) wrote his overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1827.
202 French poet set by old Benjy Britt: Benjamin Britten (1913–76) composed his song cycle (opus 18) based on Les Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud in 1939. Burgess had a high regard for Montagu Slater’s libretto for Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. He described it as ‘the only libretto I know that can be read in its own right as a dramatic poem’.