The twelve-volume cycle "A Dance to the Music of Time" - often compared to Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" due to its content and formal design - is considered the major work of British author Anthony Powell and is one of the most significant literary works of the 20th century. Inspired by the eponymous painting by French Baroque painter Nicolas Poussin, the cycle presents a multifaceted portrait of the English upper class from the end of World War I to the late 1960s. From the perspective of the first-person narrator Jenkins, who is characterized by typical British humor and understatement - and who bears several biographical parallels to Powell as his alter ego - the "Dance" offers a wealth of characters, events, observations, and memories that provide a unique and insightful glimpse.