John Anthony Burgess Wilson was born in 1917 in Manchester, England, to Joseph, a cashier and pub pianist, and Elizabeth (Burgess) Wilson. His mother and sister died of the flu in 1919, and Burgess was raised by a maternal aunt, and later by his stepmother. He studied in England at Xaverian College and Manchester University, from where he graduated in 1940 with a degree in English language and literature, though his chief passion was music. After serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War II, Burgess pursued a career in education, teaching at Birmingham University and Banbury Grammar School and working for the Ministry of Education.

In 1959, while an education officer in Brunei, Borneo, doctors diagnosed Burgess with a cerebral tumor, giving him a year to live. It was then he began writing in earnest, steadily turning out novels, columns, and reviews. He dropped his first and...