The first novel Anthony Powell published following the completion of his epic A Dance to the Music of Time, O, How the Wheel Becomes It! fulfills perhaps every author's fantasy as it skewers a conceited, lazy, and dishonest critic. A writer who avoids serving in World War II and veers in and out of marriage, G. F. H. Shadbold ultimately falls victim to the title's spinning--and righteous--emblem of chance. Sophisticated and a bit cruel, Wheel's tale of posthumous vengeance is, nonetheless, irresistible. Written at the peak of the late British master's extraordinary literary career, this novel offers profound insight into the mind of a great artist whose unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony will delight devotees and new readers alike.

Written from a vantage point both high and deliberately narrow, the early novels of the late British master Anthony Powell nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and the strange drivers of human behavior. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, Powell's early works reveal the stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in his epic, A Dance to the Music of Time. Powell's sophomore novel, Venusberg, follows journalist Lushington as he leaves behind his unrequited love in England and travels by boat to an unnamed Baltic state. Awash in a marvelously odd assortment of counts and ladies navigating a multicultural, elegant, and politically precarious social scene, Lushington becomes infatuated with his very own, very foreign Venus. An action-packed literary precursor to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Venusberg is replete with assassins and Nazis, loose countesses and misunderstandings, fatal accidents and social comedy. But beyond its humor, this early installment in Powell's literary canon will offer readers a welcome window onto the mind of a great artist learning his craft.

Unsavory artists, titled boobs, and charlatans with an affinity for Freud - such are the oddballs whose antics animate these early novels from the late British master Anthony Powell. A genius of social satire delivered with a very dry wit, Powell builds his comedies on the foibles of British high society between the wars, delving into subjects as various as psychoanalysis, the film industry, publishing, and (of course) sex. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, these slim novels reveal the early stirrings of the unequalled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in Powell's epic A Dance to the Music of Time. From a View to a Death takes us to a dilapidated country estate where an ambitious artist of questionable talent, a family of landed aristocrats wondering where the money has gone, and a secretly cross-dressing squire all commingle among the ruins. In Agents and Patients, we return to London with the newly wealthy Blore-Smith: an innocent, decent enough chap...and a drip who falls victim to two con artists. In What's Become of Waring, Powell lampoons a world with which he was intimately acquainted: the inner workings of a small London publisher. Filled with eccentric characters and piercing insights, Powell's work is achingly hilarious, human, and true.

Written from a vantage point both high and deliberately narrow, the early novels of the late British master Anthony Powell nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and the strange drivers of human behavior.
More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, Powell's early works reveal the stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in his epic, "A Dance to the Music of Time."
In "Afternoon Men," the earliest and perhaps most acid of Powell's novels, we meet the museum clerk William Atwater, a young man stymied in both his professional and romantic endeavors. Immersed in Atwater's coterie of acquaintances--a similarly unsatisfied cast of rootless, cocktail-swilling London sophisticates--we learn of the conflict between his humdrum work life and louche social scene, of his unrequited love, and, during a trip to the country, of the absurd contrivances of proper manners.
A satire that verges on nihilism and a story touched with sexism and equal doses self-loathing and self-medication, "Afternoon""Men" has a grim edge to it. But its dialogue sparks and its scenes grip, and for aficionados of Powell, this first installment in his literary canon will be a welcome window onto the mind of a great artist learning his craft.

Unsavory artists, titled boobs, and charlatans with an affinity for Freud-such are the oddballs whose antics animate these early novels from the late British master Anthony Powell. A genius of social satire delivered with a very dry wit, Powell builds his comedies on the foibles of British high society between the wars, delving into subjects as various as psychoanalysis, the film industry, publishing, and (of course) sex. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, these slim novels reveal the early stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in Powell's epic. A Dance to the Music of Time. From a View to a Death takes us to a dilapidated country estate where an ambitious artist of questionable talent, a family of landed aristocrats wondering where the money has gone, and a secretly cross-dressing squire all commingle among the ruins. In Agents and Patients, we return to London with the newly wealthy Blore-Smith: an innocent, decent enough chap...and a drip who falls victim to two con artists. In What's Become of Waring, Powell lampoons a world with which he was intimately acquainted: the inner workings of a small London publisher. Filled with eccentric characters and piercing insights, Powell's work is achingly hilarious, human, and true.

Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve novel sequence chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, and is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England. It is unrivalled for its scope, its humour and the enormous pleasure it has given to generations. Volume 4 contains the last three novels in the sequence: Books do Furnish a Room; Temporary Kings; Hearing Secret Harmonies.

A Dance to the Music of Time chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, and is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England. It is unrivalled for its scope, its humour and the enormous pleasure it has given to generations. The Acceptance World follows Nicholas Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool and others, as they negotiate the intellectual, cultural and social hurdles which stand between them and the 'Acceptance World'.

OUR CAT HOGAN - COULD HE BE PART DOG? is the amusing story of a real-life Kansas Cat who seems a bit confused. After adopting him, Hogan's family noticed he was MUCH FRIENDLIER than any other cat they had ever been around. Other people noticed too. Some would even say: "This cat is more like a dog " Come read along And by the end of the book, you and your children will likely understand why Hogan's family is always asking: "Our Cat Hogan, Could He Be Part Dog?"

To earn the reputation of a literary giant within the generation of Waugh, Orwell, and Greene is no mean feat. To do so with the grace and genius that characterized Anthony Powell-whose twelve-volume" A Dance to the Music of Time" is possibly the only English-language work to match the majestic scope of Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past"-is nothing short of spectacular. Yet Powell himself remains absent from his writing; he was, said the "New York Times," "a writer of mordant succinctness who rewards the reader while revealing little of himself."
Powell did eventually reveal himself in four volumes of memoirs published between 1976 and 1982 with the titles of "Infants of the Spring," "Messengers of Day," "Faces in My Time," and "The Strangers All Are Gone," This edition of Anthony Powell's memoirs an abridged and revised version of those volumes, a version that has never before been published in the United States. The result is not only a fascinating view of Powell as a man and an author but also a unique history of British literary society and the social elite Powell lampooned and moved within from the 1920s through the 1980s. From Eton and Oxford to his life as a novelist and critic, Powell observes all-the obscenity trial sparked by "Lady Chatterley's Lover"; Shirley Temple's libel suit after Graham Greene reviewed "Wee Willie Winkie" "with even more than his usual verve"-and paints vivid portraits of Kingsley Amis, V.S. Naipaul, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and countless others. Most importantly, Powell's lively memoirs banish all thought of the man as a relic of the British gentry. He was a modernist, a Tory, and more than a little interested in genealogy and peerage, but aman who, according to Ferdinand Mount, "miraculously knew what life was like."

_________________________ The first three volumes of Anthony Powell's remarkable A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME sequence: A QUESTION OF UPBRINGING; A BUYER'S MARKET; THE ACCEPTANCE WORLD 'One of the greatest pleasures of my reading life. The cool elegance of the prose, the deliciously dry humour, the confident choreography of his characters make for an incomparable treat.' - Michael Palin Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, and is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England. It is unrivalled for its scope, its humour and the enormous pleasure it has given to generations. These first three novels in the sequence follow Nicholas Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool and others, as they negotiate the intellectual, cultural and social hurdles which stand between them and the 'Acceptance World'.

'I think it now becoming clear that A Dance to the Music of Time is going to become the greatest modern novel since Ulysses' Clive James

Anthony Powell's famous sequence of books deftly choreographs the lives of more than three hundred characters over a period of seventy years and chronicles the whole century. Summer is the second volume of the quartet.

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers. In this eighth volume, Nick Jenkins has been posted to Divisional Headquarters as the assistant to his old friend, the rapidly rising Major Widmerpool. Having to work alongside the rather obnoxious Captain Biggs, Nick is pleased when his old school pal Charles Stringham becomes the latest recruit to the armed forces. However, the cruelties of war are not far behind. As the Blitz intensifies, tragedy and despair befall Nick and his friends.

Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, and is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England. It is unrivalled for its scope, its humour and the enormous pleasure it has given to generations. Volume 3 contains the seventh, eighth and ninth novel in the series: The Valley of Bones; The Soldier's Art; The Military Philosophers

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers. In the eleventh volume in the series, Nick Jenkins, persuaded by his old friend Mark Members, attends a literary conference in Venice. Meanwhile, old school pal Widmerpool continues to climb the ranks, this time as a Life Peer. But his position in power is under threat when he becomes the subject of whispered accusations of espionage, and wife Pamela, former lover of the dead writer X. Trapnel, also finds herself the centre of attention, as the mystery around the writer continues to draw ghoulish interest from readers and academics alike. Even in Venice, surrounded by the beautiful vistas of the city, Nick cannot escape his friends' turbulent lives.

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers. In this final volume of Anthony Powell's 'A Dance to the Music of Time', the sixties are in full swing and Nick Jenkins and his wife Isobel are living out their later years in the countryside. Not content with a quiet retirement, Nick's old school friend Widmerpool is on the rise again and is appointed chancellor of a new university. But while Nick and his contemporaries are settling in to a slower pace of life, the rise of sixties counterculture signals a new generation pushing its way to the front. And as the Dance draws to a close, a wedding brings together old faces one last time.

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers. In this ninth volume, Nick Jenkins, now a captain, is working in military liaison. When he receives the tragic news of the death of an old friend, it is an ever-present reminder of the way things used to be, especially when Widmerpool finds himself engaged again, this time to the notorious Pamela Flitton. As the war's toll is mounting, Nick, like the rest of his compatriots, is weary of life in uniform and looking ahead to peacetime.

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN 'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers. In this sixth volume, with Britain on the brink of war yet again, Nick Jenkins reflects back on his childhood growing up in the shadow of World War I. Wanting to follow in his father's footsteps, Nick sets his sights on becoming an officer in the Army, and asks his old school friend Widmerpool, who is gaining prominence in the business world, if he will help him. But reserves lists are quickly filling up with names, and it's not long until the threat of war is the one thing on everyone's mind.