A landmark biography’ The Times, Books of the Year / ‘One of our generation’s greatest biographers’ London Review of Books / ‘Witty, spirited, richly crowded with incident and character – a joy to read’ Prospect / From the author of the prize-winning Matisse The Master comes an essential biography of one of 20th century Britain’s greatest literary minds. Anthony Powell: the literary genius who gave us A Dance to the Music of Time, an epic twelve spectacular volume cyle of novels about twentieth century British society. This comic masterpiece teems with idiosyncratic characters, capturing Britain through war and peace in all its eccentricity. And it was inspired by the author’s own life immersed in rich social intrigue – debutante balls, penniless muses, publisher feuds, summers on the French Riviera, weekend parties at country houses, and friendships with everyone from Evelyn Waugh to Graham Greene to VS Naipaul… Hilary Spurling brings all this back to vivid life, investigating the friends, relations, lovers and acquaintances, fools and savants who surrounded Anthony Powell, and who he immortalised in his magnificent literary legacy.