A Clockwork Orange
Burgess, Anthony
Paperback
List Price:                 $13.95
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A 1962 dystopian novel written by Anthony Burgess that has been adapted to film, television, and stage theatre since it's release.  It is divided into three parts, each with seven chapters, totalling 21 chapters.  This division was devised on purpose, 21 being an important milestone in people's lives and maturation.  The first US editions, however, cut the final Chapter because editors believed that American audiences would not appreciate it.  The final chapter consists of the main character turning around, discovering that what he thought about life was wrong - a classic moment of metanoia where the character attempts turn his life around.  US editors believed that American audiences would prefer a more bleak ending where the character has succumbed to his darker nature.  Later editions have reintroduced the 21st chapter. The film adaptation, which was directed by Stanley Kubrick, was based on the previous edited novel and did not include the final redeeming chapter.

Awards:
1983 - Prometheus Award (Preliminary Nominee)
1999 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2002 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2003 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2006 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2008 - Prometheus Award (Hall of Fame Award)

A Clockwork Orange was also chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best English-Language Novels from 1923-2005.

Summary
The only American edition of the cult classic novel.

A vicious fifteen-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film of the same title. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."