Since the first edition of Anthony Powell appeared in 1974, the eminent English novelist and critic has published an additional eight books, including his memoirs in four volumes.

In this revised edition, Neil Brennan draws from Powell's interpretation of his life and times to illuminate his work. "By delineating the family from which his values emerged, the education and friendships that helped form his theories of art, and the political times that gave his wit its ironic edge," writes Brennan, "the memoirs clarify the real attitudes behind the art.".

Nowhere is this examination of Powell's art in light of his life more instructive than as applied to his acclaimed series of novels, The Music of Time. Published between 1951 and 1975, the 12 volumes in the series constitute a richly detailed study of a complex world: that of the English upper class from the 1920s through the 1960s.

Through the voice of his narrator, Nick Jenkins, Powell traces the lives of a circle of friends and acquaintances as they move from privileged enclaves similar to those of Eton and Oxford (where Powell himself was educated) into the complex adult world of courtship, marriage, child rearing, and professional endeavor, and all the experiences of success and failure that attend it.

Brennan provides plot synopses and narrative analyses for each of Powell's 19 novels.

They constitute a creative output that extends over more than 60 years, beginning with the celebrated Afternoon Men (1931), a shrewd study of the bohemian London art scene during the 1920s - which Powell himself frequented after finishing his university studies - and concluding with the Fisher King (1986), the story of an aging artist aware that he is nearing the end of his life - published when Powell was 80 years old.