Product Description
Temporary Kings
Author: Anthony Powell
Format: Paperback
'He is, as Proust was before him, the great chronicler of his culture in his time.' — Guardian
'The elegance of the style draws you in like incense to reverie.' — Sunday Times
'Gives pattern to the spectacle of human existence.' — Louisa Young
'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Now in the first volume's 75th anniversary year, this twelve-volume series is ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers.
In this eleventh volume, Nick Jenkins, persuaded by his old friend Mark Members, attends a literary conference in Venice. Meanwhile in London, his old school friend, Widmerpool, continues to climb the social ranks, this time to the status of Life Peer. However, his position in power is under threat.
Widmerpool finds himself the subject of whispered accusations of espionage and his wife, Pamela, former lover of the dead writer X. Trapnel, also becomes the centre of attention as the mystery around the writer continues to draw ghoulish interest from readers and academics alike. Even surrounded by the beautiful vistas of Venice, Nick cannot escape his friends' turbulent lives.
Praise for 'A Dance to the Music of Time'
'A world as rich as Joyce's on the one hand and P. G. Wodehouse's on the other.' — Guardian
'One of the great novel-sequences in English Literature.' — William Boyd
'One of the greatest pleasures of my reading life.' — Michael Palin
'An epic, elegant masterpiece.' — Lauren Groff
'A joyous experience.' — Roddy Doyle
'An intricately wrought work of art.' — John Banville
'The finest long comic novel that England has produced.' — Anthony Burgess
'Mr Powell's imagination is inexhaustible.' — Evelyn Waugh
'One of English fiction's few twentieth-century masterpieces.' — London Review of Books
'There is no other novelist whose work gives so much or such consistent pleasure.' — Times Literary Supplement
About the Author
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.
For custom orders and quotes: shop@schoolspace.co.za
© 2026 Schoolspace. This product description is the exclusive intellectual property of the publisher, protected under copyright law. Unauthorized use, adaption, or copying is strictly prohibited.
