Books Do Furnish A Room

Books Do Furnish A Room

Summary

'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 tenth volume, Nick Jenkins and his circle of friends are re-establishing their lives in the wake of war. With the London literary scene starting to find its feet again, things begin to look up for Nick as old acquaintance Quiggin offers him a position at the literary magazine he is launching. Meanwhile, there already seems to be trouble in paradise for the newly married Widmerpool, whose wife, Pamela Flitton, has caught the eye of writer X. Trapnel – a man who exudes in equal measure mystery, talent and an air of self-destruction.

Reviews

  • One of the great novel-sequences in English Literature – a wonderful portrait of society, full of insight into the complexities of human behaviour, richly detailed and shrewdly funny.
    William Boyd

About the author

Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell was an only child, born in 1905. As a young man he worked for a crumbling publishing business whilst trying to find time to write novels. He moved in a bohemian world of struggling writers and artists, which was to provide the raw material for much of his fiction. During the Second World War he served in Military Intelligence Liaison. He subsequently became a fiction reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and for five years he was the literary editor of the now-defunct magazine Punch. Meanwhile he continued to work on the twelve-novel sequence ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’. He was the author of seven other novels, and four volumes of memoirs. His many reviews for the Daily Telegraph are also published in collected volumes. Anthony Powell died in March 2000.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more