"THE SUPREME COMIC NOVELIST IN ENGLAND AFTER WORLD WAR II": ANTHONY POWELL'S A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME, FIRST EDITION SET

POWELL, Anthony. A Dance to the Music of Time. London: William Heinemann, (1951-75). Twelve volumes. 12mo, modern full navy morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $6800.

First editions of all 12 books in Powell’s vast multi-volume “A Dance to the Music of Time” novel, with a signed autograph inscription by Powell tipped into the first volume, handsomely bound.

"The last surviving member of that prolific, gifted generation of English writers who came out of Oxford in the mid-1920s," Powell "produced plays, literary criticism, biography and 50 years' worth of book reviews for the Daily Telegraph, but will be best remembered for a sequence of 12 novels written between 1950 and 1975, the roman-fleuve A Dance to the Music of Time… It is Powell's ability to create a universal fiction out of the dynamics, interactions and interrelations of his own relatively narrow upper-class set that accounts for the breadth of the books' appeal… When future generations wish to understand the texture of 20th-century English life, their best source will be Powell, and A Dance to the Music of Time" (John Perry). The work comprises 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) and Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975). "The supreme comic novelist in England after World War II" (New York Times). With original spines for each volume tipped in at rear.

Fine condition.