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At Lady Molly's
  • Published: 15 March 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099472438
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $24.99

At Lady Molly's

Formats & editions
Paperback
15 Mar 2005
EBook
11 Jan 2011
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Volume 4 in Anthony Powell's epic masterwork ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’, universally acknowledged as one of the great feats of 20th century 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.

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

‘A rich chronicle of 20th-century English social life.’ John Banville

‘Incalculably brilliant.’ Time

‘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 fourth volume, Nick Jenkins has settled comfortably into the world of art, culture and society as a London scriptwriter, only to be invited by a friend to spend the weekend in the country. There, he becomes acquainted with Isobel Tolland, the youngest daughter of a large aristocratic family, and immediately decides they are destined to marry.

Meanwhile, rumours are circulating around Nick’s old friend Widmerpool’s engagement during a gathering at Lady Molly’s. As the roaring twenties give way to the austerity of the thirties, Nick and his friends are forced to grapple with the double-edged sword of love and heartbreak as life’s dance continues on.

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
  • Published: 15 March 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099472438
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Anthony Powell

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.
AP

Also by Anthony Powell

To Keep The Ball Rolling
Agents And Patients
Journals 1990-1992
Temporary Kings
Hearing Secret Harmonies
The Valley Of Bones
The Soldier's Art
See all

Praise for At Lady Molly's

I would rather read Mr. Powell than any English novelist now writing

Kingsley Amis

Incalculably brilliant

TIME Magazine

He has wit, style, and panache, in a world where those qualities are in permanently short supply

The New York Review of Books

[A] comic masterpiece

Irish Times

Comic, satisfying, thought-provoking, addictive

The Telegraph

One of the great novel-sequences in English Literature – a wonderful portrait of society, full of insight into the complexities of human behaviour, richly detailed and shrewdly funny.

William Boyd

"A Dance To The Music of Time" is an epic, elegant masterpiece, so full of lightness and comedy that you're unprepared for how it quietly wrecks your heart.

Lauren Groff

Discovering Anthony Powell’s "A Dance to the Music of Time" has been one of the greatest pleasures of my reading life. The cool elegance of the prose, the deliciously dry humour, the confident choreography of his characters make for an incomparable treat.

Michael Palin

Powell’s novel sequence is at once a rich chronicle of 20th-century English social life and an intricately wrought work of art. It is also extremely funny, in its sly fashion.

John Banville

A masterful stylist and a wise, often hilarious observer of human nature and his times, Anthony Powell is an under-appreciated literary gem. The pleasures and dramas of the "Dance" continue to illuminate daily life.

Claire Messud

I re-read the "Dance" every five years or so and always find something new – the world has changed but the characters are evergreen. Everybody has a Widmerpool in their life.

Daisy Goodwin

Reading "A Dance to the Music of Time" was such a joyous experience, I remember wishing there'd been more than twelve volumes.

Roddy Doyle

The novels of Powell’s "A Dance to the Music of Time" themselves move hand in hand in intricate measure through the last century, bearing wisdom and understanding for the present. In an ever-quicker, ever-shallower world, his steadiness and wit reliably escort the reader into depth and patience. Nobody gives pattern to the spectacle of human existence like Powell.

Louisa Young

It's his supreme skill in mastering a lengthily interwoven chronicle, the evolution of such a range and variety of pin-point characters, the wit and the cultural ambition that give the novel a unique place in English Literature.

Melvyn Bragg

At Lady Molly's comes fourth in the Dance sequence of 12 novels, but like all the novels it can be read on its own ... If it has ever struck you that life is comic and unexpected and strangely patterned and sad, you should read Powell ... I suspect I am approaching the larger realisation that Powell is the perfect companion for every stage of existence. Few novelists are wiser about people or about life.

James Marriott, The Times
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