A Conversation Piece.
INSCRIBED TO ANTHONY POWELL
The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold A Conversation Piece.
Chapman and Hall, 1957.
First edition. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt, in (supplied) pictorial dustwrapper by Val Biro. Inscribed on the front free endpaper to Anthony Powell, "For Tony with deep respect from Evelyn." A very good copy in a very good dustwrapper, with some fraying to the spine ends and a light stain to the rear panel.
An exceptional association linking two of the great novelists of the twentieth century.
"Although two years behind him at Oxford, Powell had seen just enough of Waugh to recognise that he was bound to make his mark in the world somehow. They met again in 1927... Powell warmed to Waugh, whose self confidence had not been dented by the many setbacks he had experienced since leaving Oxford." (Michael Barber - Anthony Powell A Life)
It was through his friendship with Powell, that Waugh found his first publisher in Duckworth where Powell worked at the time. Duckworth famously declined to publish Waugh's first novel, Decline & Fall, but remained Waugh's publishers choice for his travel writings. The break up of Waugh's marriage involving Powell's raffish friend John Heygate caused relations between Waugh and Powell to temporarily cool, but both kept up a regular correspondence and common interests saw to it that their lives intertwined for the remainder of Waugh's life. In particular, a mutual support, born of respect for each other's work, remained constant between the two. Upon Waugh's death in 1966, Powell wrote, "his going means that a chunk of my own life has gone too."
PROVENANCE: From the library of Anthony Powell, bookplate on front pastedown
Stock ID: 34075
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