The opening novel in Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time. Published in 1951, it begins the story of a trio of boys, Nicholas Jenkins (the narrator), Charles Stringham, and Peter Templer, who are friends at a nameless school (based upon Powell's public school Eton College) and then move on to different paths. A fourth figure, Kenneth Widmerpool, stands slightly apart from them, poised for greatness.The novel is concerned with the flow and transience of life and the play of time upon love and friendship. Another major theme introduced in A Question of Upbringing is the consequence of living by the will.In presenting four very different characters - ",the artist, the romantic, the cynic, and the man of will", - the author sets the scene for an extended exploration of what it means to grow and mature. The language of youth, deployed with precision, is used to depict the emergence of the boys into manhood in a period when memories of the Great War overshadow many of their elders.

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great chronicler of his culture in his time.' Guardian

'One of the great novel-sequences in English Literature.' William Boyd

'Wonderfully observed ... true, funny, stylistically dazzling.' The Times

'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Now in its 75th anniversary year, this first volume is ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers.

In this first volume, Nick Jenkins, freshly introduced to the ebbs and flows of life at boarding school in the 1920s, spends his time in the company of his new friends: Peter Templer, Charles Stringham, and Kenneth Widmerpool.

Though their days are filled with visits from relatives and boyish pranks, usually at the expense of their housemaster, Le Bas, a disastrous trip in Templer's car threatens their friendship. As the school year comes to a close, the young men are faced with the prospect of adulthood and, with it, finding their place in the world.

**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

Vorwort
The opening novel in Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time

Autorentext

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.

Klappentext

'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 first volume, Nick Jenkins is introduced to the ebbs and flows of life at boarding school in the 1920s, spent in the company of his friends: Peter Templer, Charles Stringham, and Kenneth Widmerpool.

Though their days are filled with visits from relatives and boyish pranks, usually at the expense of their housemaster Le Bas, a disastrous trip in Templer's car threatens their new friendship. As the school year comes to a close, the young men are faced with the prospects of adulthood, and with finding their place in the world.