Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell
Anthony Powell
Born	21 December 1905 (age 120); Westminster, London, England
Died	28 March 2000 (aged 94)
Occupation(s)	Author, novelist
Known for	A Dance to the Music of Time

Anthony Dymoke Powell (; born 21 December 1905 – died 28 March 2000) was a distinguished English author renowned primarily for his twelve-volume saga A Dance to the Music of Time, which was published over the period from 1951 to 1975. This series continues to be in print and has inspired adaptations for both television and radio. In 2008, The Times recognized Powell as one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Life

Born in Westminster, Powell was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Lionel William Powell of the Welch Regiment and Maud Mary Wells-Dymoke, whose family had hereditary connections to the monarchy dating back to Richard II of England. The Powell family lineage extended to ancient Welsh royal ancestry, a heritage Powell extensively investigated, culminating in an acknowledged genealogy featured in Burke's Landed Gentry.

Owing to his father's military service during the First World War, the family moved frequently. Powell was educated at New Beacon School before securing a place at Eton College, where he formed a friendship with novelist Henry Green and nurtured his artistic abilities. In 1923, he matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he joined the Hypocrites' Club and mingled with notable contemporaries such as Maurice Bowra. He completed his studies with a third-class degree, having spent his final year living off-campus.

Following his time at Oxford, Powell immersed himself in London's social circles, attending debutante balls in Mayfair and Belgravia, and associating with cultural figures including Evelyn Waugh, who introduced him to the Bohemian milieu of the Gargoyle Club. He developed friendships with artists Nina Hamnett and Adrian Daintrey as well as composer Constant Lambert.

In 1934, Powell wed Lady Violet Pakenham. The couple moved in 1952 to The Chantry, a rural estate located in Whatley, Somerset. Powell received the title Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1956; he declined a knighthood offered in 1973 but was later appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 1988. From 1962 until 1976, he served as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. The Powells traveled extensively abroad, visiting countries such as the United States, India, Guatemala, Italy, and Greece.

Powell’s literary dedications reveal his extensive connections among prominent authors and intellectuals including John Bayley, Robert Conquest, Antonia Fraser, Roy Jenkins, Hugh Massingberd, Arthur Mizener, and Edith Sitwell.

In his later years, Powell’s health deteriorated due to multiple strokes. He passed away at The Chantry on 28 March 2000 at age ninety-four.

Work

Relocating to London in autumn 1926, Powell resided there for twenty-five years. He began his career with an apprenticeship at publishers Gerald Duckworth and Company in Covent Garden, where he facilitated the publication of A Tower of Skulls: a Journey through Persia and Turkish Armenia by Gerald Reitlinger.

After protracted negotiations concerning title, remuneration, and working hours, Powell left Duckworth in 1936. He briefly took up screenwriting at Warner Bros. in Teddington before attempting an unsuccessful venture into Hollywood employment in 1937. Subsequently, he contributed reviews of novels for The Daily Telegraph and memoirs for The Spectator.

When World War II commenced, Powell enlisted as a second lieutenant in the British Army; being older and less experienced than many peers. Initially posted with the Welch Regiment in Northern Ireland during air raids on Belfast, he was soon reassigned to specialized training preparing him for military governance duties after hostilities ended. Serving within the Intelligence Corps, he was stationed at the War Office, managing relations with foreign exile forces from Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Later assignments included brief service at the Cabinet Office on the Secretariat of the Joint Intelligence Committee, where he advanced through several promotions.

For his wartime contributions, Powell earned two General Service medals along with the 1944 France and Germany Star for escorting Allied attaches near Roermond in Holland. His liaison responsibilities garnered him honors such as the Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovakia), Oaken Crown (Luxembourg), Order of Leopold II (Belgium), and Luxembourg War Cross.

Following demobilization, Powell devoted himself exclusively to writing.

Although he visited the Soviet Union in 1936, Powell did not embrace left-wing politics prevalent among many literary contemporaries. A staunch supporter of the Tory cause, he maintained skepticism toward right-wing extremism as well and associated with figures like George Orwell and Malcolm Muggeridge. Disapproving of radical rhetoric on both ends of the spectrum, he played a role alongside Muggeridge in organizing Orwell’s funeral.

Family

On 1 December 1934, Powell wed Lady Violet Pakenham (1912–2002), sister to Lord Longford, at All Saints Church in Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge. For 17 years, the couple resided at 1 Chester Gate, located in Regent's Park, London. Their eldest son, Tristram, was born in April 1940; however, during much of World War II, Powell and Lady Violet were separated due to his military service with the Welch Regiment and subsequently the Intelligence Corps. Their second son, John, arrived in January 1946.

Powell’s granddaughter, Georgia Powell, entered into marriage with Henry Somerset, 12th Duke of Beaufort on 30 April 2018.

Writing

Powell’s first novel, Afternoon Men, was released by Duckworth in 1931, with Powell personally supervising its production. Duckworth also published three additional novels: Venusberg (1932), From a View to a Death (1933), and Agents and Patients (1936), with the latter two issued after Powell had parted ways with the publisher. The covers for these editions were designed by Misha Black.

During his time in California, Powell contributed pieces intermittently to Night and Day, edited by Graham Greene, until its closure in 1938. His fifth novel, What's Become of Waring, completed around 1939, was declined by Duckworth but later published by Cassell; it sold fewer than a thousand copies.

Anticipating difficulties for creative writing during wartime, Powell began work on a biography of the 17th-century author John Aubrey. However, his military duties postponed this project. After the war concluded, he finalized John Aubrey and His Friends (1948) following protracted negotiations with publishers and subsequently edited a collection of Aubrey’s works in 1949.

Powell then undertook his most significant literary achievement: the extensive novel series A Dance to the Music of Time. Drawing inspiration from Nicolas Poussin’s painting housed in the Wallace Collection, the saga covers the years from 1921 to 1971, depicting interactions between bohemian circles and aristocratic society. The characters—loosely modeled on actual figures from upper-class milieus—experience complex relationships including marriages and affairs throughout the volumes. Powell refuted interpretations that the work was a roman à clef. He was awarded the 1957 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the fourth installment, At Lady Molly's, as well as the W. H. Smith Prize in 1974 for the eleventh volume, Temporary Kings.

In addition to his fiction writing, Powell served as a principal reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, acted as literary editor of Punch between 1953 and 1959, and contributed regularly to The Daily Telegraph from 1958 until his resignation following a personal critique by Auberon Waugh. He also occasionally reviewed for The Spectator. Numerous reviews were later gathered into two collections of critical essays: Miscellaneous Verdicts (1990) and Under Review (1992).

Between 1976 and 1982, Powell published four memoir volumes entitled To Keep the Ball Rolling, followed by two novels: O, How the Wheel Becomes It! (1983) and The Fisher King (1986).

His Journals, documenting the period from 1982 to 1992, were released between 1995 and 1997; his Writer's Notebook appeared posthumously in 2001; and a third anthology of critical essays titled Some Poets, Artists, and a Reference for Mellors was published in 2005.

Spy novelist Alan Furst commended Powell’s expertise in narrative structure and dialogue craftsmanship, acknowledging him as an influential mentor in literary technique.

Collage

Throughout his literary career, Powell engaged in creating collages, with the most remarkable being the vast assemblage located in the Chantry. This piece has been characterized as "an enormous collage exhibiting both scale and surrealistic intensity."

The creation of this artwork spanned several decades and has since been digitized, with portions reproduced as endpapers in Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time. An online 360-degree panoramic view is accessible via Powell's "Boiler Room" Collage at The Chantry.

In 2019, photographer Tim Beddow showcased the collage on the cover of The World of Interiors, a publication by Condé Nast. By 2021, Christopher Matthew described it as "one of the most intricate collages I have ever seen," noting its coverage of walls, ceiling, and even water pipes. Later, in 2025, Harry Mount compared it to a "Sistine Chapel of literary Britain" in Telegraph Luxury. Powell’s great-granddaughter, Hope Coke, contributed an illustrated essay about this boiler room collage for The Oldie magazine.

Recognition

Dance was transformed into a television miniseries by Hugh Whitemore in 1997 and aired on Channel 4. Prior to this, a 26-episode BBC Radio 4 adaptation was produced between 1978 and 1981 by Graham Gauld and Frederick Bradnum, featuring Noel Johnson as the narrator. A subsequent radio version adapted by Michael Butt was broadcast in 2008.

Powell earned several prestigious literary awards, including The Hudson Review’s Bennett Award and the Ingersoll Foundation’s T. S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing in 1984. In recognition of his contributions, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Bath in 1995.

Established in 2000 by scholars dedicated to celebrating his work, the Anthony Powell Society promotes his legacy through publications such as the quarterly Anthony Powell Newsletter and the journal Secret Harmonies.

A centenary exhibition honoring Powell’s achievements was held at London’s Wallace Collection from 2005 to 2006. Additional exhibitions took place at Eton College, Cambridge University, New York’s Grolier Club, and Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

Hilary Spurling, both a colleague and biographer, authored Invitation to the Dance: A Guide to Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time in 1977 and later published a detailed biography titled Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time in 2017.

On 16 September 2023, a Blue plaque was unveiled at 1 Chester Gate, London NW1—the site where Powell began composing A Dance to the Music of Time. This event was organized by the Anthony Powell Society.

A Dance to the Music of Time

A Question of Upbringing (1951)
A Buyer's Market (1952)
The Acceptance World (1955)
At Lady Molly's (1957)
Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (1960)
The Kindly Ones (1962)
The Valley of Bones (1964)
The Soldier's Art (1966)
The Military Philosophers (1968)
Books Do Furnish a Room (1971)
Temporary Kings (1973)
Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975)

Standalone novels

Afternoon Men (1931)
Venusberg (1932)
From a View to a Death (1933)
Agents and Patients (1936)
What's Become of Waring (1939)
O, How the Wheel Becomes It! (1983)
The Fisher King (1986)

Selected bibliography of additional works

The Barnard Letters (1928)
"The Watr'y Glade," featured in The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands, edited by Graham Greene (1934)
Novels of High Society from the Victorian Age, edited by Anthony Powell, Pilot Press, 1947
John Aubrey and His Friends (1948)
Brief Lives and Other Selected Writings of John Aubrey, edited by Powell, Cresset Press, 1949
Two Plays: The Garden God, The Rest I'll Whistle (1971)
A Writer's Notebook (2001)
Miscellaneous Verdicts: Writings on Writers 1946-1989 (1990)
Under Review: Further Writings on Writers 1946-1989 (1991)
Some Poets, Artists & 'A Reference for Mellors' (2005)
The Acceptance of Absurdity: Anthony Powell & Robert Vanderbilt Letters 1952–1963, edited by John Saumarez Smith & Jonathan Kooperstein, Maggs Bros, 2011
Anthony Powell on Wine, compiled by Robin Bynoe, Anthony Powell Society, 2017
King Arthur and Other Personages, edited by Robin Bynoe, Anthony Powell Society, 2019

Memoirs

To Keep the Ball Rolling: Memoirs of Anthony Powell
- Volume 1: Infants of the Spring (1976)
- Volume 2: Messengers of Day (1978)
- Volume 3: Faces in My Time (1980)
- Volume 4: The Strangers All are Gone (1982)

An abridged single-volume edition titled To Keep the Ball Rolling was released in 1983.

Diaries

Journals 1982–1986 (1995)
Journals 1987–1989 (1996)
Journals 1990–1992 (1997)

External links

Anthony Powell Society