Anthony Burgess

Nothing Like the Sun

Before Shakespeare in Love, there was Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun: a magnificent, bawdy telling of Shakespeare's love life.

"Shakespeare [is shown] in his own stirring times. . . . A brilliant book. . . . Taut and forceful."—Aileen Pippett, Times Literary Supplement [London]

"Implicitly, Burgess is making the case that Shakespeare's talent had its origin in his sexual drives and that his topless towers of words were founded on his immense desire and will. Fascinated but resistant, I reread the sonnets and found that the novel illuminated them so much as to justify his case. This is to me a measure of Burgess's talents--that he can remake reality not only in his own writing but also in a new perception of the writings of his subject."—New York Times Book Review