About the Author

Anthony Powell (1905-2000) was born in London and educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He worked for a London publisher from 1927 to 1935 and as a film scriptwriter from 1935 to 1936. He also served as a liaison officer for the Intelligence Corps during World War II. The literary editor of Punch from 1952 to 1958, Powell also wrote reviews and literary columns for many newspapers and periodicals. He became an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997 and was named a Commander of the British Empire in 1956 and, after refusing a knighthood in 1973, a Companion of Honor in 1988. His published works include Afternoon Men (1931), From a View to a Death (1933), What's Become of Waring (1939), and his twelve-volume masterpiece A Dance to the Music of Time, the latter available from the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

"Among portraits of twentieth-century British literary life this is perhaps the wittiest and most keenly observed--and certainly the finest written."-- "Atlantic Monthly"

"Powell can offer many of the rewards of comic creation we find in a Dickens or a Jane Austen, coupled with the ultimate gift of such creations."-- "Times Literary Supplement"