Anthony Powell became one of the great novelists of the twentieth century by the end of his life. However, he began his writing career in the interwar period amidst the boisterous milieu of impoverished writers and artists in London and Paris. He worked for a publishing house in decline, where he oversaw, among other things, the works of the eccentric Sitwell siblings and spent extravagant summer vacations on the Côte d'Azur. His lifelong friendship with Evelyn Waugh began even before either of them had written a novel. George Orwell and Malcolm Muggeridge later became close friends, and P. G. Wodehouse counted himself among Powell's admirers. "While reading your books, I kept thinking: Why didn't I come up with something like this?" Wodehouse once wrote to him. "I examined the material under a microscope but couldn't figure out how you did it." Powell maintained lively correspondence with Graham Greene, V. S. Naipaul, Harold Pinter, Philip Larkin, and many other writers. Hilary Spurling's biography sheds light on Powell's friendships and affairs as well as his long-lasting marriage, which provided him stability during the years he wrote his extraordinary twelve-volume novel "A Dance to the Music of Time." Spurling draws on Powell's letters, diaries, and the memories of those who knew him, revealing for the first time Powell's own dance to the music of time: with all the comic and tragic experiences, as well as his many friends, relationships, lovers, acquaintances, fools, and geniuses, who inspired him to create one of the most impressive bodies of work of our time.