St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. It is home to some of the most expensive properties in the world.

St John's Wood was developed from the early 19th century onwards. It was one of the first London suburbs to be developed with a large amount of low density "villa" housing, as opposed to the terraced housing which was the norm in London up to the 19th century, even in expensive districts. Parts of St John's Wood have been rebuilt at a higher density, but it remains a highly desirable residential district.

St John's Wood is the location of Lord's Cricket Ground, home of Middlesex County Cricket Club and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), and original headquarters of the sport. It is also famous for Abbey Road Studios and the street Abbey Road, where The Beatles recorded, notably the ''Abbey Road'' album, the cover of which features the band crossing the road. Paul McCartney has owned a property in the area since the 1960s along with many other famous music and film stars.

The King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery has a barracks in St. John's Wood and regularly exercises their horses by parading them through the streets of St. John's Wood.

Philosopher A.J. Ayer was born and grew up in the area, as did Chef Clarissa Dickson Wright, and the former Wrights' home is now home to supermodel Kate Moss. Actor Damian Lewis was born in St John's Wood. The Rolling Stones referenced it in their song "Play With Fire". Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones lived on Carlton Hill, at the northern edge of St John's Wood, in the 1960s, as detailed in his 2010 autobiography, "Life". The director, wit and physician Jonathan Miller was born into a wealthy family in the area. The British World War II flier Douglas Bader was born in St. John's Wood.

Education

Transport and locale

;Nearest places

Belsize Park to the north-east

Hampstead to the north

Kilburn to the north-west

Lisson Grove to the south

Maida Vale to the south-west

Marylebone to the south

Primrose Hill to the east

Regents Park to the south

Swiss Cottage to the north

The nearest London Underground stations are St John's Wood, Swiss Cottage — on the Jubilee Line; Maida Vale, Marylebone Station and Warwick Avenue — on the Bakerloo Line; and Baker Street on Bakerloo Line, Jubilee Line, Hammersmith & City Line, Metropolitan Line and Circle Line.

The nearest London Overground station is South Hampstead

Notable residents

Past and present residents of the area include:

Lily Allen - musician

James Caan - entrepreneur

Vanessa Feltz - broadcaster

Andy Fletcher - musician

Leonard N. Fowles - organist/composer

Avram Grant - football manager

Daphne Guinness – socialite

Stephen Hough - concert pianist

Nigel Kennedy - violinist

Lillie Langtry – actress

John Lawford - Royal Navy officer

Terry Manning, music producer

Jonathan Rhys Meyers - actor

Jonathan Miller - writer, opera director, physiologist and sculptor

Kate Moss - model

Alex Prior - singer/composer

Keith Richards - rock musician and songwriter

Mel Smith - actor

Clarissa Dickson Wright - chef

Sachin Tendulkar - cricketer

;See also: :Category:People from St John's Wood

St John's Wood in literature and music

St John's Wood is the home of fictional characters Bingo and Rosie Little in P. G. Wodehouse's ''Jeeves and Wooster'' books.

Irene Adler lives there (in Briony Lodge on Serpentine Avenue) in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia".

In the first installment of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, The Man of Property, Young Jolyon lives on fictional Wistaria Avenue with his second wife and family.

Referenced in the Rolling Stones song, ''Play with Fire'', released in 1965.

Setting of Howard Jacobson's book The Making of Henry. In Jacobson's 2010 Man Booker Prize winning novel The Finkler Question, St John's Wood is the planned location for the Museum of Anglo-Jewish Culture.

Count and Countess Fosco live at No. 5 Forest Road, St. John's Wood in Wilkie Collins's 1859 sensation novel "The Woman in White".

References

External links

Map of St John's Wood and the surrounding districts

YourLocal London - St John's Wood (Community Website)

Category:Districts of London Category:Districts of Westminster Category:Orthodox Jewish communities in London

da:St John's Wood fr:St. John's Wood hi:सेंट जॉन्स वुड nl:St John's Wood no:St John's Wood ru:Сент-Джонс-Вуд sk:St John's Wood

Coordinates	51°27′6.1″N2°36′10.5″N
Name	St. John's
Official name	City of St. John's
Settlement type	City
Nickname	"The City of Legends"
Motto	''Avancez'' (French: "Go forward")
Flag size	100px
Pushpin map	Canada Newfoundland
Pushpin label position	none
Pushpin map caption	Location of St John's in Newfoundland
Coordinates region	CA-NL
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name
Subdivision type1	Province
Subdivision name1
Subdivision type2	Census division
Subdivision name2	1
Government type	City Council
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Dennis O'Keefe
Leader title1	Governing body
Leader name1	St. John's City Council
Leader title2	MPs
Leader name2
Leader title3	MHAs
Leader name3
Established title	Founded
Established date	24 June 1497
Established title2	Established
Established date2	5 August 1583 by Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I
Area total km2	446.04
Area total sq mi	172.2
Area urban km2	182.62
Area metro km2	804.63
Area metro sq mi	310.7
Population as of	2006 census
Population note	20th Largest metropolitan area in Canada
Population total	100646
Population density km2	225.6
Population density sq mi	576.0
Population metro	181,113
Population density metro km2	225.1
Population density metro sq mi	556.6
Population urban	151,322
Population density urban km2	828.67
Population blank1 title	Demonym
Population blank1	Townie
Timezone	NST
Utc offset	-3:30
Timezone dst	NDT
Utc offset dst	-2:30
Elevation m	Sea Level 0–147
Elevation ft	0–483
Area code	709
Blank name	NTS Map
Blank info	001N10
Blank1 name	GNBC Code
Blank1 info	ABEFS
Blank name	Dwellings
Blank info	45,317
Blank1 name	Median Income
Blank1 info	$75,930 CDN
Website	St. John's website
Footnotes	}}

St. John's is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 192,326 as of July 1, 2010, the St. John's Metropolitan Area is the second largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada after Halifax and the 20th largest metropolitan area in Canada. Its name has been attributed to the feast day of John the Baptist, when John Cabot was believed to have sailed into the harbour in 1497, and also to a Basque fishing town with the same name.

It was claimed as an English colony of Elizabeth I in 1583, temporarily captured by the Dutch in 1665, and attacked three times by the French who captured and destroyed it in 1689 and 1707. St John's was retaken each time and re-fortified. British forces used St. John's fortifications during the Seven Years' War in North America, the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. St. John's served allied needs in World War ll by providing an air base for the US Army Air Corps and a harbour for antisubmarine warfare ships.

St. John's, and the province as a whole, was gravely affected in the 1990s by the collapse of the Northern cod fishery, which had been the driving force of the provincial economy for hundreds of years. After a decade of high unemployment rates and depopulation the city's proximity to the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose oil fields has led to an economic boom that has spurred population growth and commercial development. As a result, the St. John's area now accounts for about half of the province's economic output.

History

Referred to as "North America's Oldest City", St. John's is the oldest settlement in North America to hold city status, with year-round settlement beginning sometime before 1620. It is not, however, the oldest surviving English settlement in North America or Canada, as is often wrongly believed, as it was preceded by Cupids (originally called Cuper's Cove), founded in 1610, Bristol's Hope, founded in 1618, and possibly Harbour Grace. Tradition declares that the city earned its name when explorer John Cabot became the first European to sail into the harbour, on June 24, 1497, the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. However, the exact locations of Cabot's landfalls are disputed. A series of expeditions to St. John's by the Portuguese in the Azores followed in the early 16th century, and by 1540 French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the Basque Country, it is a common belief that the name of St. John's was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is also called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan).

The earliest record of the location appears as São João on a Portuguese map by Pedro Reinel in 1519. When John Rut visited St. John's in 1527 he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On August 3, 1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry on the findings of his voyage to North America; this was the first known letter sent from North America. St. Jehan is shown on Nicholas Desliens' world map of 1541 and San Joham is found in João Freire's Atlas of 1546. It was during this time that Water Street was first developed, making it the oldest street in North America.

On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. There was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement. The Newfoundland National War Memorial is located on the waterfront in St. John's, at the purported site of Gilbert's landing and proclamation.

By 1620, the fishermen of England's West Country controlled most of Newfoundland's east coast. In 1627, William Payne, called St. John's ''"the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country"''. The population grew slowly in the 17th century and St. John's was the largest settlement in Newfoundland when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675.

The eighteenth century saw major changes in Newfoundland: population growth, beginnings of government, establishment of churches, reinforcement of commercial ties with North America and development of the seal, salmon and Grand Banks fisheries. St. John's population grew slowly, and although it was still primarily a fishing station, it was also a garrison, a centre of government and a commercial hub. St. John's served as a naval base during both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's on December 1901 from his wireless station in Poldhu, Cornwall.

St. John's was the starting point for the first non-stop transatlantic aircraft flight, by Alcock and Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber, in June 1919, departing from Lester's Field in St. John's and ending in a bog near Clifden, Connemara, Ireland. In July 2005, the flight was duplicated by American aviator and adventurer Steve Fossett in a replica Vickers Vimy aircraft, with St. John's International Airport substituting for Lester's Field (now an urban and residential part of the city).

During the Second World War, the harbour supported Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy ships that were engaged in anti-submarine warfare. It was also the site of an American Army Air Force base, Fort Pepperrell, that was established as part of the "Lend-Lease" agreement between the United Kingdom and United States. The base was transferred to Canadian control in 1960 and is now known as CFS St. John's. The Knights of Columbus Hostel fire in December 1942, saw 99 military and civilian lives lost.

Geography

St. John's is located along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, on the northeast of the Avalon Peninsula in southeast Newfoundland. The city covers an area of and is the most easterly city in North America, excluding Greenland. The city is the largest in the province and the second largest in the Atlantic Provinces after Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its downtown area lies to the north of St. John's Harbour, and the rest of the city expands from the downtown to the north, south, east and west.

Coniferous trees such as black spruce, white spruce, and balsam fir fir dominate the native vegetation. The largest deciduous tree is white birch; species of lesser stature include alder, cherry and mountain ash. Of introduced tree species, sycamore maple is most abundant and Norway maple is common. Blue spruce, common horsechestnut, European beech and littleleaf linden are among the other non-native species grown.

Climate

Of major Canadian cities, St. John's is the foggiest (124 days), snowiest (), wettest (), windiest ( average speed), and cloudiest (1,497 hours of sunshine). St. John's experiences a mild winter season in comparison to other Canadian cities and has the mildest winter for a city outside of British Columbia.

St. John's has a humid continental climate (Koppen ''Dfb'') with cool-to-warm summers, and relatively mild winters, which is due to Gulf Stream moderation. Mean temperatures range from in February to in August, showing somewhat of a seasonal lag in the climate. The city is also one of the areas of the country most prone to tropical cyclone activity, as it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, where tropical storms (and sometimes hurricanes) travel to this country.

Cityscape

Architecture

The architecture of St. John's has a distinct style from that of the rest of Canada, and its major buildings are remnants of its history as one of the first British colonial capitals. Buildings took a variety of styles according to the means available to build the structures.

Starting as a fishing outpost for European fishermen, St. John's consisted mostly of the homes of fishermen, sheds, storage shacks, and wharves constructed out of wood. Like many other cities of the time, as the Industrial Revolution took hold and new methods and materials for construction were introduced, the landscape changed as the city grew in width and height. The Great Fire of 1892 destroyed most of the downtown core, and most residential and other wood-frame buildings date from this period.

Often compared to San Francisco due to the hilly terrain and steep maze of residential streets, housing in St. John's is typically painted in bright colours. The city council has implemented strict heritage regulations in the downtown area, including restrictions on the height of buildings. These regulations have caused much controversy over the years. With the city experiencing an economic boom a lack of hotel rooms and office space has seen proposals put forward that do not meet the current height regulations. Heritage advocates argue that the current regulations should be enforced while others believe the regulations should be relaxed to encourage economic development.

To meet the need for more office space downtown, without compromising the city's heritage, the city council amended heritage regulations, which restricted height beyond 15 metres, in the area of land on Water Street between Bishop's Cove and Steer's Cove to create the "Commercial Central Retail - West Zone". The new zone will allow for buildings of greater height. A 47 metre, 12 storey, office building which includes retail space and a parking garage was the first building to be approved in this area.

Demographics

{| cellpadding="1" style="float:right; margin:0 1em 1em 0; border:1px #bbb solid; border-collapse:collapse; font-size:70%;" |- style="text-align:center; background:#8899aa;" ! colspan= "3" | Ethnic Origins |- style="text-align:center; background:#abc;" | |Population |Percentage |- style="text-align:center;" |English |44,935 |45.19 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |Canadian |38,465 |38.68 |- style="text-align:center;" |Irish |34,325 |34.52 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |Scottish |9,580 |9.63 |- style="text-align:center;" |French |5,425 |5.45 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |German |2,740 |2.75 |- style="text-align:center; background:#8899aa;" ! colspan= "3" | Visible minorities |- style="text-align:center; background:#abc;" | |Population |Percentage |- style="text-align:center;" |Total |2,950 |2.96 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |South Asian |875 |0.88 |- style="text-align:center;" |Chinese |800 |0.80 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |Black |520 |0.52 |- style="text-align:center;" |Latin American |285 |0.28 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |Arab |180 |0.18 |- style="text-align:center;" |Filipino |75 |0.07 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |West Asian |65 |0.06 |- style="text-align:center;" |Japanese |55 |0.05 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |Other |40 |0.04 |- style="text-align:center;" |Southeast Asian |30 |0.03 |- style="text-align:center; background:#eee;" |Korean |15 |0.01 |- style="text-align:center;" |Multiple |15 |0.01 |} As of the 2006 Census, there were 100,646 inhabitants in St. John's itself, 151,322 in the urban area and 181,113 in the St. John's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Thus, St. John's is Newfoundland and Labrador's largest city and Canada's 20th largest CMA. Apart from St. John's the CMA includes 12 other communities: the city of Mount Pearl and the towns of Conception Bay South, Paradise, Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Torbay, Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, Pouch Cove, Flatrock, Bay Bulls, Witless Bay, Petty Harbour-Maddox Cove and Bauline. The population of the CMA was 192,326 as of July 1, 2010.

Population trend

! Census	! Population	! Change (%)
2006	100,646	1.5%
2001	99,182	-2.7%
1996	101,936	-2.6%
1991	104,659	N/A

Mother tongue language (2006)

! Language	! Population	! Pct (%)
English only	95,555	96.10%
Other languages	3,420	3.43%
French only	355	0.35%
Both English and French	95	0.09%

|}

Economy

The St. John's economy is connected to both its role as the provincial capital of Newfoundland and Labrador and to the ocean. The civil service which is supported by the federal, provincial and municipal governments has been the key to the expansion of the city's labour force and to the stability of its economy, which supports a sizable retail, service and business sector. The provincial government is the largest employer in the city, followed by Memorial University. With the collapse of the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1990s the role of the ocean is now tied to what lies beneath it – oil and gas – as opposed to what swims in or travels across it. The city is the centre of the oil and gas industry in Eastern Canada and is one of 16 World Energy Cities. ExxonMobil Canada is headquartered in St. John's and companies such as Chevron, Husky Energy, Suncor Energy and Statoil have major regional operations in the city. Three major offshore oil developments, Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose, are in production off the coast of the city and a fourth development, Hebron, is expected to be producing oil by 2017.

The economy has been growing quickly in recent years. In 2010 the city's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.8 per cent, the highest rate of growth for any Canadian city. At $52,000 the city's per capita GDP is the second highest out of all major Canadian cities. Economic forecasts suggest that the city will continue its strong economic growth in the coming years not only in the "oceanic" industries mentioned above, but also in tourism and new home construction as the population continues to grow. In May 2011, the city's unemployment rate fell to 5.6 per cent, the second lowest unemployment rate for a major city in Canada.

St. John's is also becoming known as an entrepreneurial city. In a 2009 report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; ''Communities in Boom: Canada’s Top Entrepreneurial Cities'', St. John's was ranked the best major city in Atlantic Canada, and 19th overall in Canada for providing a good environment for small business development.

Arts and culture

The downtown area is the cultural hub of St. John's and is a major tourist destination in Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada. Both Water Street and Duckworth Street are known for their brightly coloured low rise heritage buildings which house numerous tourist shops, clothing boutiques, and restaurants.

George Street, a downtown side-street above the western end of Water Street, is the predominant home of the city's nightlife. The street holds numerous annual festivals including the George Street Festival in August and the Mardi Gras Festival held in October. The street can be credited with kick starting the careers of many musical acts and is busy nearly every night of the week.

The LSPU Hall is home to the Resource Centre for the Arts. The "Hall" hosts a vibrant and diverse arts community and is regarded as the backbone of artistic infrastructure and development in the downtown. The St. John's Arts and Culture Centre houses an art gallery, libraries and a 1000 seat theater, which is the city's major venue for entertainment productions.

The Nickel Film Festival and the St. John's International Women's Film Festival are two independent film festivals held annually in St. John's.

Attractions

Museums

The Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador (c. 1892-3) was located on Duckworth Street in a building listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. In 2005 the museum, along with the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, moved into The Rooms. The Rooms is Newfoundland and Labrador's cultural facility, and is located in the downtown area.

The Railway Coastal Museum is a transportation museum located in the 104 year old Newfoundland and Labrador train station building on Water Street.

The Johnson Geo Centre is a geological interpretation centre located on Signal Hill. The centre is designed to teach the public about the history of the earth through the unique and complex geological history of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Urban parks

Pippy Park is an urban park located in the east end of the city; with over of land, it is one of Canada‘s largest urban parks. The park contains a range of recreational facilities including two golf courses, Newfoundland and Labrador's largest serviced campground, walking and skiing trails as well as protected habitat for many plants and animals. Pippy Park is also home to the Fluvarium, an environmental education centre which offers a cross section view of Nagle's Hill Brook.

Bowring Park, located in the Waterford Valley, is one of the most scenic parks in St. John's. Entrance to the park is via Waterford Bridge Road, passing a sculptured duck pond and a statue of Peter Pan. The park land was donated to the city in 1911 by Sir Edgar Rennie Bowring on behalf of Bowring Brothers Ltd. on their 100th anniversary of commerce in Newfoundland. The park was officially opened by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Connaught on July 15, 1914.

Bannerman Park is a Victorian-style park located near the downtown. The park was officially opened in 1891 by Sir Alexander Bannerman, Governor of the Colony of Newfoundland who donated the land to create the park. Today the park contains a public swimming pool, playground, a baseball diamond and many large open grassy areas. Bannerman Park plays host to many festivals and sporting events, most notably the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival and St. John's Peace-a-chord. The park is also the finishing location for the annual Tely 10 Mile Road Race.

Murray Premises

The Murray Premises is a National Historic Site located in downtown St. John's. The buildings once served as a fishery premises, with facilities for drying and packaging fish and warehouses for fish, barrels and other items. The oldest of the buildings is the one facing on Beck’s Cove. It was built after the 1846 fire and for a time served as both shop and house. The Murray Premises was renovated in 1979 and now contains office suites, restaurants, retail stores and a boutique hotel.

Signal Hill

Signal Hill is a hill which overlooks the city of St. John's. It is the location of Cabot Tower which was built in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland, and Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The first transatlantic wireless transmission was received here by Guglielmo Marconi on December 12, 1901. Today, Signal Hill is a Canadian National Historic Site and remains incredibly popular amongst tourists and locals alike; 97% of all tourists to St. John's visit Signal Hill. Amongst its popular attractions are the Signal Hill Tattoo, showcasing the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of foot, circa 1795, and the North Head Trail which grants an impressive view of the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding coast.

Sports

St. John's has been home to several professional hockey franchises. The St. John's Maple Leafs, the city's former American Hockey League (AHL) team, was lost during the 2004-2005 season to Toronto, Ontario due to the desire of its parent team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, to reduce travel costs and to have a tenant for its Ricoh Coliseum.

The Maple Leafs were replaced by the St. John's Fog Devils of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). The team left St. John's in 2008 after just three seasons due to a poor lease arrangement with the city over the use of Mile One Centre and poor attendance. Mile One Centre has been left without a major tenant since 2008 but efforts are underway to have another hockey team relocated to the city.

On June 1, 2011, former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams announced he had come to an agreement with True North Sports and Entertainment, the owners of the Manitoba Moose, to relocate the Moose from Winnipeg to St. John's starting in the 2011-2012 season. The St. John's IceCaps will be the minor league affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets which displaced the Moose.

The rugby union team The Rock is the Eastern Canadian entry in the Americas Rugby Championship. The Rock play their home games at Swilers Rugby Park, as did the Rugby Canada Super League champions for 2005 and 2006, the Newfoundland Rock. The city hosted a Rugby World Cup qualifying match between Canada and the USA on August 12, 2006, where the Canadians heavily defeated the USA 56-7 to qualify for the 2007 Rugby World Cup finals in France. The 2007 age-grade Rugby Canada National Championship Festival was held in the city.

St. John's is home to North America's oldest annual sporting event, the Royal St. John's Regatta, which dates back to at least 1816. The event is important enough in the life of the city that the day of the Regatta (the first Wednesday in August, weather permitting) is a civic holiday — one of the few weather-dependent holidays in the world.

The Tely 10 is an annual road race that starts in Paradise and finishes at Bannerman Park. The race draws in excess of 2,500 runners. It began in 1922, which makes it one of the oldest road races in Canada.

St. John's played host to the Canada Men's Soccer team's first (and only) qualification for the FIFA World Cup on September 14, 1985, where they defeated Honduras 2-1, at King George V Park. The park also played host to a FIFA World Cup Qualification game on August 20, 1972, where Canada beat USA 3-2. Canada, however, failed to qualify for the World Cup in 1974.

Curling has gained prominence in St. John's over the years. The 2005 Scott Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian women's curling championship, was held at Mile One Centre from February 19 to 27, 2005. The 2006 Olympic gold medalist men's curling team, skipped by Brad Gushue, is based in St. John's.

Law and government

St. John's is governed by a mayor-council system, and the structure of the municipal government is stipulated by the City of St. John's Act. The St. John's City Council is a unicameral legislative body composed of a mayor, deputy mayor and nine councillors. The mayor, deputy mayor and four of the councillors are elected at large while the five other councillors represent geographical wards throughout the city. The mayor and members of the city council serve four-year terms without term limits.

Elections in St. John’s are held every four years on the last Tuesday in September. The current city council was elected in the municipal election held on September 29, 2009. The Mayor of St. John's is Dennis O'Keefe, who has served in the position since 2008. The St. John's City Hall, located on New Gower Street, has housed municipal offices and Council Chambers since being officially opened in 1970.

St. John's served as the capital city of the Colony of Newfoundland and the Dominion of Newfoundland before Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province in 1949. The city now serves as the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, therefore the provincial legislature is located in the city. The Confederation Building, located on Confederation Hill, is home to the House of Assembly along with the offices for the Members of the House of Assembly (MHAs) and Ministers. The city is represented by seven MHAs, six who are members of the governing Progressive Conservative Party, and one that belongs to the New Democratic Party (NDP). Lorraine Michael, leader of the NDP since 2006, represents the district of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi and is the only member of her party elected to the House of Assembly. The Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Kathy Dunderdale, represents the district of Virginia Waters, in the northeast end of the city.

The Newfoundland and Labrador office for the regional federal minister is located in downtown St. John's. Regional offices for federal government departments and agencies are also located throughout the city.

Crime

Policing services for the city are provided by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, which serves as the primary policing body of the metropolitan area. The B Division headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is located in the Pleasantville neighbourhood but the RCMP primarily operate in the rest of Newfoundland and Labrador and not St. John's.

St. John's has traditionally been one of the safest cities in Canada to live, however in recent years crime in the city has steadily increased. While nationally crime decreased by 4% in 2009, the total crime rate in St. John's saw an increase of 4%. During this same time violent crime in the city decreased 6%, compared to a 1% decrease nationally. In 2010 the total crime severity index for the city was 101.9, an increase of 10% from 2009 and 19.2% above the national average. The violent crime severity index was 90.1, an increase of 29% from 2009 and 1.2% above the national average. St. John's had the seventh-highest metropolitan crime index and twelfth-highest metropolitan violent crime index in the country in 2010.

According to Statistics Canada's Juristat reports (1993–2007), the metropolitan area reports an average homicide rate of approximately 1.15 per 100,000 population; an average of two homicides per year. An all-time high rate of 2.27 was reported in 1993 (four homicides). This figure is far below the national average and ranks amongst the lowest rates for any metropolitan area in Canada.

Infrastructure

Transportation

St. John's is served by St. John's International Airport (YYT), located 10 minutes northwest of the downtown core. It handles nearly 1,200,000 passengers a year making it the second busiest airport in Atlantic Canada in passenger volume. Regular destinations include Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, as well as destinations throughout the province. International locations include London, New York City, Saint Pierre and Miquelon and Varadero. Scheduled service providers include Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz, Air Saint-Pierre, Air Transat, CanJet, Continental Airlines, Porter Airlines, Provincial Airlines, Skyservice, Sunwing Airlines and Westjet.

St. John's is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway, one of the longest national highways in the world. The divided highway, also known as "Outer Ring Road" in the city, runs just outside the main part of the city, with exits to Pitts Memorial Drive, Topsail Road, Team Gushue Highway, Thorburn Road, Allandale Road, Portugal Cove Road and Torbay Road, providing relatively easy access to neighbourhoods served by those streets. Pitts Memorial Drive runs from Conception Bay South, through the city of Mount Pearl and into downtown St. John's, with interchanges for the Goulds, Water Street and Hamilton Avenue-New Gower Street. The Parkway is another major thoroughfare in the city.

The St. John's Cycling Master Plan was officially launched in July 2009. Its first phase will consist of 43 kilometres of on-road painted bike lanes, signs on an additional 73 kilometres of roadway, the installation of 20 bicycle parking facilities and the addition of bike racks on the fleet of 53 Metrobuses.

Metrobus Transit is responsible for public transit in the region. Metrobus has a total of 19 routes, 53 buses and an annual ridership of 3,014,073. Destinations include the Avalon Mall, The Village Shopping Centre, Memorial University, Academy Canada, the College of the North Atlantic, the Marine Institute, the Confederation Building, downtown, Stavanger Drive Business Park, Kelsey Drive, the Goulds, Kilbride, Shea Heights, the four hospitals in the city as well as other important areas in St. John's and Mount Pearl.

St. John's was the eastern terminus of the Newfoundland Railway from 1898 until the abandonment and closure of the railway in September 1988.

Medical centres and hospitals

St. John's is served by Eastern Health, Newfoundland and Labrador's largest health authority.

The city's major hospitals include the Health Sciences Centre, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, Waterford Hospital and the Janeway Children's Health and Rehabilitation Centre.

Education

St. John's is served by the Eastern School District, the largest school district in Newfoundland and Labrador by student population. There are currently 36 primary, elementary and secondary schools in the city of St. John's, including three private schools. St. John's also includes one school that is part of the province-wide Conseil Scolaire Francophone (CSF), the Francophone public school district. It also contains two private schools, St. Bonaventure's College and Lakecrest Independent. Atlantic Canada's largest university, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), is located in St. John's. MUN provides comprehensive education and grants degrees in several fields and its historical strengths in engineering, business, geology, and medicine, make MUN one of the top comprehensive universities in Canada. The Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland (MI) or simply Marine Institute, is a post-secondary ocean and marine polytechnic located in St. John's and is affiliated with Memorial University of Newfoundland.

The College of the North Atlantic (CNA) is the public college of the province and operates two main campuses within the city. CNA provides career, trade, and university-transfer programs for St. John's residents. The city also hosts a number of private colleges and post-secondary schools; Academy Canada, Eastern College, and Keyin College are the largest of these schools.

Local media

St. John's has one daily newspaper ''The Telegram''. Other local papers include ''The Muse'', ''The Gazette'', ''Le Gaboteur'', ''The Scope'', ''The Business Post'' and ''The Current''. St. John's also receives the nationally distributed newspaper ''The Globe and Mail''.

NTV is an independent station, headquartered in St. John’s. The station sublicenses entertainment programming from Global and news programming from CTV and Global, rather than purchasing primary broadcast rights. Rogers Cable has its provincial headquarters in St. John’s, and their community channel Rogers TV airs local shows such as ''Out of the Fog'' and ''One Chef One Critic''. CBC has its Newfoundland and Labrador headquarters in the city and their television station CBNT broadcasts from University Avenue. CBAFT is Radio-Canada's television service in Atlantic Canada which serves Franco-Newfoundlanders.

The city is home to 15 AM and FM radio stations, two of which are French-language stations. St. John's is the only Canadian city served by radio stations whose call letters do not all begin with the letter ''C''. The ITU prefix ''VO'' was assigned to the Dominion of Newfoundland before the province joined Canadian Confederation in 1949, and three AM stations kept their existing call letters. However, other commercial radio stations in St. John's which went to air after 1949 use the same range of prefixes (''CF''–''CK'') currently in use elsewhere in Canada, with the exception of VOCM-FM, which was permitted to adopt the VOCM callsign because of its corporate association with the AM station that already bore that callsign. VO also remains in use in amateur radio.

Sister cities

See also

List of cities and towns in Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador

References

Bibliography

Harding, Les. ''Historic St. John's: The City of Legends''. Jesperson, 1993. ISBN 0-921692-52-8

Galgay, Frank. ''Olde St. John's: Stories from a Seaport City''. St. John's: Flanker, 2001.

External links

City of St. John's

Early Newfoundland Settlement Schemes

Newfoundland and Labrador's Provincial Register of Historic Places

St. John's and Area

Documentary film ''Rain, Drizzle, and Fog''

Trail Canada Guide

Category:Port settlements in Canada Category:Populated coastal places in Canada Category:Populated places established in 1583

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Coordinates	51°27′6.1″N2°36′10.5″N
name	John Anthony Burgess Wilson
pseudonym	Anthony Burgess, John Burgess Wilson, Joseph Kell
birth date	February 25, 1917
birth place	Harpurhey, Manchester, England
death date	November 22, 1993
death place	St John's Wood, London, England
occupation	Novelist, critic, composer, librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, travel writer, broadcaster, translator, linguist, educationalist
nationality	British
language	English
period	1956–1993
genre	Historical fiction, philosophical novel, satire, epic, spy fiction, horror, biography, literary criticism, travel literature, autobiography
subject	exile, colonialism, Islam, faith, lust, marriage, evil, alcoholism, homosexuality, linguistics, pornography
movement	Modernism
influences	Homer, Pelagius, Dante, Lawrence, the English Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Hopkins, Conrad, Ford, Joyce, Freud, Orwell, Eliot, Lévi-Strauss
influenced	}}

John Burgess Wilson (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire ''A Clockwork Orange'' is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works. It was adapted into a highly controversial 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and ''Earthly Powers''. He was a prominent critic, writing acclaimed studies of classic writers such as William Shakespeare, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway. In 2008, ''The Times'' placed Burgess number 17 on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Burgess was an accomplished musician and linguist. He composed over 250 musical works, including a first symphony around age 18, wrote a number of libretti, and translated, among other works, ''Cyrano de Bergerac'', ''Oedipus the King'' and ''Carmen''.

Biography

Early life

Burgess was born John Burgess Wilson on 25 February 1917 in Harpurhey, a suburb of Manchester, to Catholic parents. He was known in childhood as Jack Wilson, Little Jack, and Johnny Eagle. At his confirmation, the name Anthony was added and he became John Anthony Burgess Wilson. He began using the pen name Anthony Burgess on publication of his 1956 novel ''Time for a Tiger''.

His mother Elizabeth died at the age of 30 at home on 19 November 1918, during the 1918–1919 Spanish flu pandemic. The causes listed on her death certificate were influenza, acute pneumonia, and cardiac failure. His sister Muriel had died four days earlier on 15 November from influenza, broncho-pneumonia, and cardiac failure, aged eight. Burgess believed that he was resented by his father, Joseph Wilson, for having survived. After the death of his mother, Burgess was raised by his maternal aunt, Ann Bromley, in Crumpsall with her two daughters. During this time, Burgess's father worked as a bookkeeper for a beef market by day, and in the evening played piano at a public house in Miles Platting. After he married the landlady of this pub, Margaret Dwyer, in 1922, Burgess was raised by the couple. By 1924 the couple had established a tobacconist and off-licence business with four properties. On 18 April 1938, Joseph Wilson died from cardiac failure, pleurisy, and influenza at the age of 55 leaving no inheritance.

Burgess has said of his largely solitary childhood: "I was either distractedly persecuted or ignored. I was one despised ... Ragged boys in gangs would pounce on the well-dressed like myself." He attended St. Edmund's Roman Catholic Elementary School before moving on to Bishop Bilsborrow Memorial Elementary School in Moss Side. He later reflected: "When I went to school I was able to read. At the Manchester elementary school I attended, most of the children could not read, so I was ... a little apart, rather different from the rest." Good grades resulted in a place at Xaverian College (1928–1937). As a young child he did not care about music, until he heard on his home-built radio "a quite incredible flute solo," which he characterized as "sinuous, exotic, erotic," and became spellbound. Eight minutes later the announcer told him he had been listening to ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' by Claude Debussy. He referred to this as a "psychedelic moment ... a recognition of verbally inexpressible spiritual realities." When Burgess announced to his family that he wanted to be a composer, they objected as "there was no money in it." Music was not taught at his school, but at about age 14 he taught himself to play the piano. Burgess had originally hoped to study music at university, but the music department at the Victoria University of Manchester turned down his application due to poor grades in physics. So instead he studied English language and literature there between 1937 and 1940, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts. His thesis concerned Marlowe's ''Doctor Faustus'', and he graduated with an upper second-class honours, which he found disappointing. When grading one of Burgess's term papers, the historian A.J.P. Taylor, wrote: "Bright ideas insufficient to conceal lack of knowledge." Burgess met Llewela (Lynne) Isherwood Jones at the University where she was studying economics, politics and modern history, graduating in 1942 with an upper second-class. Burgess and Jones were married on 22 January 1942.

Military service

Burgess spent six weeks in 1940 as an army recruit in Eskbank before becoming a Nursing Orderly Class 3 in the Royal Army Medical Corps. During his service he was unpopular and was involved in incidents such as knocking off a corporal's cap and polishing the floor of a corridor to make people slip. In 1941 Burgess was pursued by military police of the British Armed Forces for desertion after overstaying his leave from Morpeth military base with his bride Lynne. In 1942 he asked to be transferred to the Army Educational Corps and despite his loathing of authority he was promoted to sergeant. During the blackout his pregnant wife Lynne was attacked by four GI deserters and as a result she lost the child. Burgess, stationed at the time in Gibraltar, was denied leave to see her. At his stationing in Gibraltar, which he later wrote about in ''A Vision of Battlements'', he worked as a training college lecturer in speech and drama, teaching alongside Ann McGlinn in German, French and Spanish. McGlinn's communist ideology would have a major influence on his later novel ''A Clockwork Orange''. Burgess played a key role in "The British Way and Purpose" programme, designed to reintroduce members of the forces to the peacetime socialism of the post-war years in Britain. He was an instructor for the Central Advisory Council for Forces Education of the Ministry of Education. Burgess' flair for languages was noticed by army intelligence and he took part in debriefings of Dutch expatriates and Free French who found refuge in Gibraltar during the war. In the neighbouring Spanish town of La Línea de la Concepción he was arrested for insulting General Franco but released from custody shortly after the incident.

Early teaching career

Burgess left the army in 1946 with the rank of sergeant-major and was for the next four years a lecturer in speech and drama at the Mid-West School of Education near Wolverhampton and at the Bamber Bridge Emergency Teacher Training College near Preston. In late 1950 he worked as a secondary school teacher at Banbury Grammar School (now Banbury School) teaching English literature. In addition to his teaching duties he supervised sports and ran the school's drama society. He organised a number of amateur theatrical events in his spare time. These involved local people and students and included productions of T. S. Eliot's ''Sweeney Agonistes''.

With financial assistance provided by Lynne's father the couple was able to put a down payment on a cottage in the village of Adderbury, close to Banbury. He named the cottage "Little Gidding" after one of Eliot's ''Four Quartets'' and Aldous Huxley's ''The Gioconda Smile''. He wrote several articles for the local newspaper, the ''Banbury Guardian''.

Malaya

In 1954, Burgess joined the British Colonial Service as a teacher and education officer in Malaya, initially stationed at Kuala Kangsar in Perak, in what were then known as the Federated Malay States. Here he taught at the Malay College, dubbed "the Eton of the East" and (now Malay College Kuala Kangsar - MCKK). In addition to his teaching duties, he was a housemaster in charge of students of the preparatory school, who were housed at a Victorian mansion known as "King's Pavilion." A variety of the music he wrote there was influenced by the country, notably Sinfoni Melayu for orchestra and brass band, which included cries of Merdeka (independence) from the audience. No score, however, is extant.

Burgess and his wife had occupied a noisy apartment where privacy was minimal, and this caused resentment. Following a dispute with the Malay College's principal about this, Burgess was reposted to the Malay Teachers' Training College at Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Burgess attained fluency in Malay, spoken and written, achieving distinction in the examinations in the language set by the colonial office. He was rewarded with a salary increment for his proficiency in the language.

He devoted some of his free time in Malaya to creative writing "as a sort of gentlemanly hobby, because I knew there wasn't any money in it," and published his first novels: ''Time for a Tiger'', ''The Enemy in the Blanket'' and ''Beds in the East''. These became known as ''The Malayan Trilogy'' and were later published in one volume as ''The Long Day Wanes''.

Brunei

After a brief period of leave in Britain during 1958, Burgess took up a further Eastern post, this time at the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin College in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. Brunei had been a British protectorate since 1888, and was not to achieve independence until 1984. In the sultanate, Burgess sketched the novel that, when it was published in 1961, was to be entitled ''Devil of a State'' and, although it dealt with Brunei, for libel reasons the action had to be transposed to an imaginary East African territory similar to Zanzibar, named Dunia. In his autobiography ''Little Wilson and Big God'' (1987) Burgess writes: "This novel was, is, about Brunei, which was renamed Naraka, Malayo-Arabic for 'hell.' Little invention was needed to contrive a large cast of unbelievable characters and a number of interwoven plots. Though completed in 1958, the work was not published until 1961, for what it was worth it was made a choice of the book society. Heinemann, my publisher, was doubtful about publishing it: it might be libelous. I had to change the setting from Brunei to an East African one. Heinemann was right to be timorous. In early 1958, ''The Enemy in the Blanket'' appeared and this at once provoked a libel suit."

About this time Burgess collapsed in a Brunei classroom while teaching history and was diagnosed as having an inoperable brain tumour. Burgess was given just a year to live, prompting him to write several novels to get money to provide for his widow. He gave a different account, however, to Jeremy Isaacs in a ''Face to Face'' interview on the BBC ''The Late Show'' (21 March 1989). He said "Looking back now I see that I was driven out of the Colonial Service. I think possibly for political reasons that were disguised as clinical reasons." He alluded to this in an interview with Don Swaim, explaining that his wife Lynne had said something "obscene" to the British Queen's consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, during an official visit, and the colonial authorities turned against him. He had already earned their displeasure, he told Swaim, by writing articles in the newspaper in support of the revolutionary opposition party the Parti Rakyat Brunei, and for his friendship with its leader Dr. Azahari.

Repatriate years

Burgess was later repatriated and relieved of his position in Brunei. He spent some time in the neurological ward of a London hospital (see ''The Doctor is Sick'') where he underwent cerebral tests that found no illness. On discharge, benefiting from a sum of money his wife had inherited from her father, together with their savings built up over six years in the East, he decided to become a full-time writer. The couple lived first in an apartment in the town of Hove, near Brighton. They later moved to a semi-detached house called "Applegarth" in Etchingham, approximately a mile from the Jacobean house where Rudyard Kipling had lived in Burwash, and one mile from the Robertsbridge home of Malcolm Muggeridge. On the death of Burgess's father-in-law, the couple used their inheritance to decamp to a terraced town house in Chiswick. This provided convenient access to the White City BBC television studios where he later became a frequent guest. During these years Burgess became a regular drinking partner of the novelist William S. Burroughs. Their meetings took place in London and Tangiers.

A sea voyage the couple took with the Baltic Line from Tilbury to Leningrad resulted in the novel ''Honey for the Bears''. He wrote in his autobiographical ''You've Had Your Time'' (1990), that in re-learning Russian at this time, he found inspiration for the Russian-based slang Nadsat that he created for ''A Clockwork Orange'', going on to note "I would resist to the limit any publisher's demand that a glossary be provided."

Liana Macellari, an Italian translator 12 years younger than Burgess, came across Burgess' novels ''Inside Mr Enderby'' and ''A Clockwork Orange'' while writing about English fiction. The two first met in 1963 over lunch in Chiswick and began an affair. In 1964 Liana gave birth to Burgess' son, Paolo Andrea. The affair was hidden from Burgess's now alcoholic wife, whom he refused to leave for fear of offending his cousin George Patrick Dwyer, then Catholic Bishop of Leeds. Lynne Burgess died from cirrhosis of the liver, on 20 March 1968. Six months later, in September 1968, Burgess married Liana, acknowledging her four-year-old boy as his own, although the birth certificate listed Roy Halliday, Liana's previous partner, as the father. Paolo Andrea (also known as Andrew Burgess Wilson) died in London in 2002, aged 37.

Tax exile

Burgess was a Conservative (though, as he clarified in an interview with ''The Paris Review'', his political views could be considered "really a kind of anarchism"), a (lapsed) Catholic and Monarchist, harbouring a distaste for all republics. He believed that socialism for the most part was "ridiculous" but did "concede that socialized medicine is a priority in any civilized country today." To avoid the 90% tax the family would have incurred due to their high income, they left Britain and toured Europe in a Bedford Dormobile motorhome. During their travels through France and across the Alps, Burgess wrote in the back of the van as Liana drove. In this period, he wrote novels and produced film scripts for Lew Grade and Franco Zeffirelli. His first place of residence after leaving England was Lija, Malta (1968–70). Problems with the Maltese state censor later prompted a move to Italy. The Burgesses maintained a flat in Rome, a country house in Bracciano, and a property in Montalbuccio. On hearing rumours of a mafia plot to kidnap Paolo-Andrea while the family was staying in Rome, Burgess decided to move to Monaco in 1975. Burgess had a villa in Provence, in Callian of the Var, France, and an apartment just off Baker Street, London.

Burgess lived for two years in the United States, working as a visiting professor at Princeton University with the creative writing program (1970) and as a distinguished professor at the City College of New York (1972). At City College he was a close colleague and friend of Joseph Heller. He went on to teach creative writing at Columbia University and was writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1969) and at the University at Buffalo (1976). He lectured on the novel at the University of Iowa in 1975. Eventually he settled in Monaco in 1976, where he was active in the local community, becoming a co-founder in 1984 of the Princess Grace Irish Library, a centre for Irish cultural studies. During this time, Burgess spent much time at his chalet two kilometres outside Lugano, Switzerland.

Death

Burgess died on 22 November 1993 from lung cancer, at the Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth in London. His ashes were interred to the cemetery in Monaco. The epitaph on Burgess's marble memorial stone, reads "Abba Abba." The phrase has several connotations. It means "Father, father" in Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew and other Semitic languages. It is Burgess's initials forwards and backwards; part of the rhyme scheme for the Petrarchan sonnet; and the title of Burgess's 22nd novel, concerning the death of Keats. Eulogies at his memorial service at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London in 1994 were delivered by the journalist Auberon Waugh and the novelist William Boyd. ''The Times'' obituary heralded the author as "a great moralist." At his death he was a multi-millionaire, leaving a Europe-wide property portfolio of houses and apartments.

Works

Novels

His Malayan trilogy ''The Long Day Wanes'' was Burgess's first published venture into the art of fiction. Its three books are ''Time for a Tiger,'' ''The Enemy in the Blanket'' and ''Beds in the East.'' It was Burgess's ambition to become "the true fictional expert on Malaya." In these works, Burgess was working in the tradition established by Kipling for British India, and Conrad and Maugham for Southeast Asia. Conrad, Maugham and Greene made no effort to learn local languages, but Burgess operated more in the mode of Orwell, who had a good command of Urdu and Burmese (necessary for Orwell's work as a police officer) and Kipling, who spoke Hindi (having learnt it as a child). Like his fellow English expats in Asia, Burgess had excellent spoken and written command of his operative language(s), both as a novelist and speaker, including Malay.

Burgess's repatriate years (c. 1960–69) produced ''Enderby'' and ''The Right to an Answer,'' which touches on the theme of death and dying, and ''One Hand Clapping,'' a satire on the vacuity of popular culture. ''The Worm and the Ring'' (1961) had to be withdrawn from circulation under the threat of libel action from one of Burgess's former colleagues.

His dystopian novel ''A Clockwork Orange'' was published in 1962. It was inspired initially by an incident during the Second World War in which his wife Lynne was robbed and assaulted in London during the blackout by deserters from the U.S. Army. The event may have contributed to her subsequent miscarriage. The book was an examination of free will and morality. The young anti-hero, Alex, captured after a short career of violence and mayhem, undergoes a course of aversion therapy treatment to curb his violent tendencies. This results in making him defenseless against other people and unable to enjoy some of his favorite music that, besides violence, had been an intense pleasure for him. In the non-fiction book ''Flame Into Being'' (1985) Burgess described ''A Clockwork Orange'' as "a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence." He added "the film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die." Near the time of publication the final chapter was cut from the American edition of the book. Burgess had written ''A Clockwork Orange'' with twenty-one chapters, meaning to match the age of majority. "21 is the symbol of human maturity, or used to be, since at 21 you got to vote and assumed adult responsibility," Burgess wrote in a foreword for a 1986 edition. Needing a paycheck and thinking that the publisher was "being charitable in accepting the work at all," Burgess accepted the deal and allowed ''A Clockwork Orange'' to be published in the U.S. with the twenty-first chapter omitted. Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of ''A Clockwork Orange'' was based on the American edition, and thus helped to perpetuate the loss of the last chapter.

In Martin Seymour-Smith's ''Novels and Novelists: A Guide to the World of Fiction,'' Burgess related that he would often prepare a synopsis with a name-list before beginning a project. Seymour-Smith wrote: "Burgess believes overplanning is fatal to creativity and regards his unconscious mind and the act of writing itself as indispensable guides. He does not produce a draft of a whole novel but prefers to get one page finished before he goes on to the next, which involves a good deal of revision and correction."

''Nothing Like the Sun'' is a fictional recreation of Shakespeare's love-life and an examination of the supposedly partly syphilitic sources of the bard's imaginative vision. The novel, which drew on Edgar I. Fripp's 1938 biography ''Shakespeare, Man and Artist,'' won critical acclaim and placed Burgess among the first rank novelists of his generation. ''M/F'' (1971) was listed by the writer himself as one of the works of which he was most proud. ''Beard's Roman Women'' is considered to be his least successful novel. Burgess has frequently been criticised for writing too many novels and too quickly. ''Beard'' was revealing on a personal level, dealing with the death of his first wife, his bereavement, and the affair that led to his second marriage. In ''Napoleon Symphony,'' Burgess brought Bonaparte to life by shaping the novel's structure to Beethoven's ''Eroica'' symphony. The novel contains a portrait of an Arab and Muslim society under occupation by a Christian western power (Egypt by Catholic France). In the 1980s, religious themes began to feature heavily (''The Kingdom of the Wicked,'' ''Man of Nazareth,'' ''Earthly Powers''). Though Burgess lapsed from Catholicism early in his youth, the influence of the Catholic "training" and worldview remained strong in his work all his life. This is notable in the discussion of free will in ''A Clockwork Orange,'' and in the apocalyptic vision of devastating changes in the Catholic Church – due to what can be understood as Satanic influence – in ''Earthly Powers'' (1980).

Burgess kept working through his final illness and was writing on his deathbed. The late novel ''Any Old Iron'' is a generational saga of two families, one Russian-Welsh, the other Jewish, encompassing the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the early years of the State of Israel, and the rediscovery of Excalibur. ''A Dead Man in Deptford,'' about Christopher Marlowe, is a companion novel to ''Nothing like the sun.'' The verse novel ''Byrne'' was published posthumously.

Critical studies

Burgess started his career as a critic. Aimed at newcomers to the subject, his book ''English Literature, A Survey for Students'' is still used in schools today. He followed this with ''The Novel To-day'' and ''The Novel Now: A Student's Guide to Contemporary Fiction''. He wrote the Joyce studies ''Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader'' (also published as ''Re Joyce'') and ''Joysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce''. Also published was ''A Shorter 'Finnegans Wake'',' Burgess's abridgement. His 1970 Encyclopædia Britannica entry on the novel (under "Novel, the") is regarded as a classic of the genre. Burgess wrote full-length critical studies of William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway and D. H. Lawrence as well as ''Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939''. His published lecture ''Obscenity and the Arts'' explores issues of pornography.

Screenwriting

Burgess wrote the screenplays for ''Moses the Lawgiver'' (Gianfranco De Bosio 1975), ''Jesus of Nazareth'' (Franco Zeffirelli 1977), and ''A.D.'' (Stuart Cooper, 1985). Burgess was co-writer of the script for the TV series ''Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson'' (1980). The film treatments he produced include ''Amundsen'', ''Attila'', ''The Black Prince'', ''Cyrus the Great'', ''Dawn Chorus'', ''The Dirty Tricks of Bertoldo'', ''Eternal Life'', ''Onassis'', ''Puma'', ''Samson and Delila'', ''Schreber'', ''The Sexual Habits of the English Middle Class'', ''Shah'', ''That Man Freud'' and ''Uncle Ludwig''. Burgess devised a Stone Age language for ''La Guerre du Feu'' (''Quest for Fire'') (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1981). He penned many unpublished scripts, including ''Will!'' or ''The Bawdy Bard'' about Shakespeare, based on the novel ''Nothing Like The Sun''. Encouraged by the success his novel ''Tremor of Intent'' (a parody of James Bond adventures), Burgess wrote a screenplay for ''The Spy Who Loved Me'', also rejected.

Music

Burgess was an accomplished musician and composed regularly throughout his life, noting that, in the way that others might enjoy yachting or golf, he wrote music. Several of his pieces were broadcast during his lifetime on BBC Radio. His Symphony No. 3 in C was premiered by the University of Iowa orchestra in Iowa City in 1975. Burgess described his ''Sinfoni Melayu'' as an attempt to "combine the musical elements of the country into a synthetic language which called on native drums and xylophones." The structure of ''Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements'' (1974) was modelled on Beethoven's Eroica symphony, while ''Mozart and the Wolf Gang'' (1991) mirrors the sound and rhythm of Mozartian composition, among other things attempting a fictional representation of Symphony No.40. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 features prominently in ''A Clockwork Orange'' (and in Stanley Kubrick's film version of the novel). Many of his unpublished compositions are listed in ''This Man and Music''.

Burgess produced a translation of Bizet's ''Carmen'' which was performed by the English National Opera, and wrote for the 1973 Broadway musical ''Cyrano'', using his own adaptation of the original Rostand play as his basis. He created ''Blooms of Dublin'' in 1982, an operetta based on James Joyce's ''Ulysses'' (televised for the BBC) and wrote a libretto for Weber's ''Oberon'', performed by the Edinburgh-based Scottish Opera.

On the BBC's ''Desert Island Discs'' radio programme in 1966, Burgess chose as his favourite music Purcell's "Rejoice in the Lord Alway"; Bach's ''Goldberg Variations'' No. 13; Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A flat major; Wagner's "Walter's Trial Song" from '''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''; Debussy's "Fêtes"; Lambert's ''The Rio Grande''; Walton's Symphony No. 1 in B flat; and Vaughan Williams' ''On Wenlock Edge''.

Broadcasting

Burgess was a frequent guest-speaker on the BBC Radio 4 programme ''Start the Week'', broadcast on Monday mornings during the 1980s.

Linguistics

"Burgess's linguistic training," wrote Raymond Chapman and Tom McArthur in ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', "is shown in dialogue enriched by distinctive pronunciations and the niceties of register." During his years in Malaya, and after he had mastered Jawi, the Arabic script adapted for Malay, Burgess taught himself the Persian language, after which he produced a translation of Eliot's ''The Waste Land'' into Persian (unpublished). He worked on an anthology of the best of English literature translated into Malay, which failed to achieve publication. Burgess's published translations include ''Cyrano de Bergerac'', ''Oedipus the King'' and ''Carmen''.

Burgess's interest in language was reflected in the invented, Anglo-Russian teen slang of ''A Clockwork Orange'' (Nadsat), and in the movie ''Quest for Fire'' (1981), for which he invented a prehistoric language (''Ulam'') for the characters. His interest is reflected in his characters. In ''The Doctor is Sick'', Dr Edwin Spindrift is a lecturer in linguistics who escapes from a hospital ward which is peopled, as the critic Saul Maloff put it in a review, with "brain cases who happily exemplify varieties of English speech." Burgess, who had lectured on phonetics at the University of Birmingham in the late 1940s, investigates the field of linguistics in ''Language Made Plain'' and ''A Mouthful of Air''.

The depth of Burgess's multilingual proficiency came under discussion in Roger Lewis's 2002 biography. Lewis claimed that during production in Malaysia of the BBC documentary ''A Kind of Failure'' (1982), Burgess's supposedly fluent Malay was unable to be understood by waitresses at a restaurant where they were filming. It was claimed that the documentary's director deliberately kept these moments intact in the film in order to expose Burgess's linguistic pretensions. A letter from David Wallace that appeared in the magazine of the London ''Independent on Sunday'' newspaper on 25 November 2002 shed light on the affair. Wallace's letter read, in part: "... the tale was inaccurate. It tells of Burgess, the great linguist, 'bellowing Malay at a succession of Malayan waitresses' but 'unable to make himself understood.' The source of this tale was a 20-year-old BBC documentary ... [The suggestion was] that the director left the scene in, in order to poke fun at the great author. Not so, and I can be sure, as I was that director ... The story as seen on television made it clear that Burgess knew that these waitresses were not Malay. It was a Chinese restaurant and Burgess's point was that the ethnic Chinese had little time for the government-enforced national language, Bahasa Malaysia [i.e. Malay]. Burgess may well have had an accent, but he did speak the language; it was the girls in question who did not." Lewis may not have been fully aware of the fact that a quarter of Malaysia's population is made up of Hokkien- and Cantonese-speaking Chinese. However, Malay had been installed as the National Language with the passing of the Language Act of 1967. By 1982 all national primary and secondary schools in Malaysia would have been teaching with Bahasa Melayu as a base language (see Harold Crouch, ''Government and Society in Malaysia'', Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996).

Honours

Burgess garnered the ''Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres'' distinction of France and became a Monégasque ''Commandeur de Merite Culturel''.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

He took honorary degrees from St Andrews, Birmingham and Manchester universities.

''Earthly Powers'' was shortlisted for, but failed to win, the 1980 English Booker Prize for fiction (the prize went to William Golding for ''Rites of Passage'').

Selected works

Novels

''Time for a Tiger'' (1956) (Volume 1 of the Malayan trilogy, ''The Long Day Wanes'')

''The Enemy in the Blanket'' (1958) (Volume 2 of the trilogy)

''Beds in the East'' (1959) (Volume 3 of the trilogy)

''The Right to an Answer'' (1960)

''The Doctor is Sick'' (1960)

''The Worm and the Ring'' (1960)

''Devil of a State'' (1961)

(as Joseph Kell) ''One Hand Clapping'' (1961)

''A Clockwork Orange'' (1962; 2008 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award)

''The Wanting Seed'' (1962)

''Honey for the Bears'' (1963)

(as Joseph Kell) ''Inside Mr. Enderby'' (1963) (Volume 1 of the Enderby quartet)

''The Eve of St. Venus'' (1964)

''Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life'' (1964)

''A Vision of Battlements'' (1965)

''Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel'' (1966)

''Enderby Outside'' (1968) (Volume 2 of the Enderby quartet)

''M/F'' (1971)

''Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements'' (1974)

''The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End'' (1974) (Volume 3 of the Enderby quartet)

''Beard's Roman Women'' (1976)

''Abba Abba'' (1977)

''1985'' (1978)

''Man of Nazareth'' (based on his screenplay for ''Jesus of Nazareth'') (1979)

''Earthly Powers'' (1980)

''The End of the World News: An Entertainment'' (1982)

''Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End of Enderby'' (1984) (Volume 4 of the Enderby quartet)

''The Kingdom of the Wicked'' (1985)

''The Pianoplayers'' (1986)

''Any Old Iron'' (1988)

''Mozart and the Wolf Gang'' (1991)

''A Dead Man in Deptford'' (1993)

''Byrne: A Novel'' (in verse) (1995)

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

Selected studies

Carol M. Dix, ''Anthony Burgess'' (British Council, 1971)

Robert K. Morris, ''The Consolations of Ambiguity: An Essay on the Novels of Anthony Burgess'' (Missouri, 1971)

A.A. Devitis, ''Anthony Burgess'' (New York, 1972)

Geoffrey Aggeler, ''Anthony Burgess: The Artist as Novelist'' (Alabama, 1979)

Samuel Coale, ''Anthony Burgess'' (New York, 1981)

Martine Ghosh-Schellhorn, ''Anthony Burgess: A Study in Character'' (Peter Lang AG, 1986)

Richard Mathews, ''The Clockwork Universe of Anthony Burgess'' (Borgo Press, 1990)

John J. Stinson, ''Anthony Burgess Revisited'' (Boston, 1991)

Paul Phillips, "The Music of Anthony Burgess" (1999)

Paul Phillips, "Anthony Burgess", New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (2001)

Paul Phillips, ''A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess'' (Manchester University Press, 2010)

Collections

Many of Burgess' literary and musical papers are archived at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester.

The largest collection of Burgessiana is held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin.

Archive at the Anthony Burgess Center of the University of Angers, with which Burgess' widow Liana (Liliana Macellari) was connected.

External links

BBC TV interview

International Anthony Burgess Foundation

The Anthony Burgess Center, at the University of Angers

Burgess reads from ''A Clockwork Orange''

Anthony Burgess at ''Open Letters''

Anthony Burgess Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Category:Academics of the University of Birmingham Category:Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester Category:Cancer deaths in England Category:City College of New York faculty Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:English composers Category:English journalists Category:English literary critics Category:English novelists Category:English poets Category:English science fiction writers Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Category:James Joyce scholars Category:Language creators Category:People from Harpurhey Category:People from Etchingham Category:Princeton University faculty Category:Prometheus Award winning authors Category:Pseudonymous writers Category:Sonneteers Category:University at Buffalo faculty Category:Writers from Manchester Category:1917 births Category:1993 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers

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