6th September 2026
Anthony Powell Conference; 9 – 11 April 2027; Edinburgh
Anthony Powell, Author
The English author Anthony Dymoke Powell was born in London on 21 December 1905. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford where he met several other young writers and artists including Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green, John Betjeman, Graham Greene and Osbert Lancaster. Prior to World War II he worked in publishing and as a film-script writer, before becoming a full-time novelist and literary critic.
The Society
The Anthony Powell Society is a charity made up of members across the world particularly in the UK and North America who wish to promote interest in Powell and his work. Powell had a wide range of friends from George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh to V.S. Naipaul, Harold Pinter and Philip Larkin. Fans of Powell have similarly always been found across the political and literary spectrum : Kingsley Amis, Clive James, Tariq Ali, A.N.Wilson and Lady Pinter to name just a few. Hilary Spurling’s official biography is an invaluable guide to his life including the background to his literary masterpiece : the 12 volume sequence of novels entitled ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’. A TV film of ‘Dance’ was made by Channel 4 in 1997 and starred Simon Russell Beale in a BAFTA winning performance.
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19:30Online talk about the Dance character Ralph Barnby
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12:30
Newsletter #104 (Autumn 2026)
Contents
- Editor's Letter
- AP in Caledionia: Conference Booking Open
- Shakespeare, Powell and the Unscene; Simon Barnes
- AP and the Order of the Golden Dawn; Felix John Taylor
- Review: Auden by Peter Ackroyd; Michael Barber
- AP's Opinions: The Latest Instalment; Keith Jewitt
- "This Singular Extravaganza": Powell and Lady Chatterley's Lover; Guy Cutherbertson
- Creation Stories: Stringham, Templer and some Rhinemaidens; Robin Bynoe
- When a Festschrift is the Best Schrift; Giles Elgood
- Lifestyle, Stephen Eggins
- Uncle Giles’ Corner
- London Pub Meet
- Society Notices & Announcements
Full copies of Newsletter are uploaded approximately 6 months following publication
Quotable Powell
To be circumscribed by people constituting the same professional community as myself was no wish of mine: rather the contrary. However, an inexorable law governs all human existence in that respect, ordaining that sooner or later everyone must appear before the world as he is. Many are not prepared to face this sometimes distasteful principle. Indeed, the illusion that anyone can escape from the marks of his vocation is an aspect of romanticism common to every profession: those occupied with the world of action claiming their true interests to lie in the pleasures of imagination or reflection, while persons principally concerned with imaginative or reflective pursuits are forever asserting their inalienable right to participation in an active sphere.
[Anthony Powell; The Acceptance World]
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