O, how the Wheel Becomes It!

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Green Integer, 2002 - Fiction - 188 pages

G. F. H. Shadbold, a lifelong poseur and literary manqué lives, for the most part, in fear of discovery. A friend, Cedric Winterwade, whom he evidently seduced in his college days, writes a novel almost as insignificant and badly written as Shadbold's own literary output. As time passes, however, and the friend is killed in the army, Winterwade's novel begins to be rediscovered, creating panic in Shadbold and a hilarious series of events in which Powell pokes fun at the writing community, academic life, and a whole generation of memoir-toting literati.

Anthony Powell, who recently died, is one of the great comic writers of Britian in the 20th century.

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About the author (2002)

Anthony Powell was born on December 21, 1905 in Westminster, England and was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1926 he became an editor at Duckworth & Co. and later moved on to be a scriptwriter for Warner Brothers. By 1937 he was a regular contributor to The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph. From 1953-1959 Powell was the Literary Editor of Punch. His first book, The Barnard Letter, was published in 1928 and his first novel, Afternoon Men, was published in 1931. In 1951 Powell published A Question of Upbringing, which was the first of the 12-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time. In 1975 he published Hearing Secret Harmonies, which was the last novel of the sequence. Powell wrote Infants of the Spring, which is part of To Keep the Ball Rolling, his memoirs. He also published The Fisher King in 1986. Anthony Powell died peacefully at his home, The Chantry, aged 94 on March 28, 2000.

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