SOURCE: "Introduction: A Clockwork Orange Resucked," in Rolling Stone, No. 496, March 26, 1987, pp. 74, 76.

In the following essay, which appeared as an introduction to the first publication of the last chapter of A Clockwork Orange in America, Burgess discusses the publication history of the twenty-first chapter and how its inclusion changes the meaning of the novel.

I first published the novella A Clockwork Orange in 1962, which ought to be far enough in the past for it to be erased from the world's literary memory. It refuses to be erased, however, and for this the film version of the book, made by Stanley Kubrick, may be held chiefly responsible. I should myself be glad to disown it for various reasons, but this is not permitted. I receive mail from students who try to write theses about it and requests from Japanese dramaturges to turn it into a sort of no play...