Anthony Burgess, Inside Mr Enderby

Rob Spence (Edge Hill University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1963

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Burgess wrote more about Enderby than any other character. He appears in four novels, having, like Sherlock Holmes, to be resurrected after fictional death to placate his admirers. It is evident that Enderby, though a repugnant character in many ways, gained a level of approval seldom accorded to Burgess’s characters, even by his admirers. The first appearance of Enderby, in the novel Inside Mr Enderby (1963), established the character who was to appear in a further three novels in increasingly bizarre circumstances.

The opening of Inside Mr Enderby is an extended conceit based on the idea of a time-travelling academic from some far distant future,(employed, we discover at the end of The Clockwork …

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2274 words

Citation: Spence, Rob. "Inside Mr Enderby". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4457, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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