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This page is a repository of frequently asked questions about Anthony Powell, his life and his works. Further items will be placed here, as available, if the information is not available elsewhere on this site. I will be delighted to receive items for possible inclusion by E-mail. |
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Do you know who Powell's biographer is likely to be?
As far as I am aware AP has made no definitive statement about who is/will be his official biographer. The best clue available seems to be in AP's Journals: Thursday 11 April 1991On that basis Hilary Spurling appears to be the prime (only?) candidate to be official biographer. But of course anyone can write a biography of someone! |
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I've seen reference to a work called Iron Aspidistra.
Do you know anything about this?
Iron Aspidistra is a poem written by the late Roy Fuller as a tribute to AP on his 80th birthday. It was published in a limited edition of 400 by the Sycamore Press, Oxford, in 1985. It is a spoof work, supposedly written by the author Mark Members (yes, the character in Dance) and as such contains a spoof publisher's permission acknowledgement and a spoof biographical note on Members. |
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I believe AP was planning a third volume of selected reviews with an odd title.
Do you know when this will be published?
Powell was certainly working on a third volume of sleceted reviews and he refers to this in Journals 1990-1992 during May-September 1992. He comments there that he was working on a publishing project which had the working title Some Poets, Painters and a Reference to Mellors. However this has never been published; at this time the status opf the manuscript is unknown. |
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Do you know if AP was planning any further volumes of diaries,
ie. beyond 1992?
As far as we are aware Powell did not keep a diary beyond 1992. Even if he did, there are no known plans for its publication. |
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I think AP may have privately published a book on genealogy, one of his hobbies.
Do you have any information on this?
I regret that I have never seen any mention of this. If anyone has any information about this then please send me an E-mail as I'd love to know about it. |
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Have you ever managed to find copies of either Caledonia
or the short story A Reference for Mellors as these seem to be very rare?
Caledonia is indeed very rare as it was privately published. Over the years I have seen only a handful of copies for sale on the UK second-hand book market and they generally fetch upwars of £2000 (at 2005 prices). Personally I have only ever seen one copy, and that was in a locked display case. However the text of Caledonia is reproduced in The New Oxford Book of Light Verse, edited by Kingsley Amis (OUP; 1978); this is still in print and indeed available in paperback. The short story A Reference for Mellors was originally published in The New Savoy, No. 1 (1946). It has subsequently been reprinted in Winters Tale 12 (1966) as well as having been republished by Moorhouse & Sorensen in 1994. |
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Do you know which "quota quickie" or B feature films AP worked on for Warner Bros.?
No, I don't know and I'd like to! AP in his memoirs Faces in My Time gives few details but does imply that nothing he worked on was ever made let alone released. The one film he does describe working on was a treatment of the life and work of the philanthropist Dr Barnardo - but even this never saw the light of day. Clearly there is a major research project here for someone. |
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Is there a term for people interested in AP?
Apart from the obvious cynical or impolite terms of endearment you mean!? :-) I know of no generally agreed term. Powelldolators has been suggested by at least one correspondent who thinks the term may have been coined by Benjamin DeMott. Personally I feel that construction is clumsy and (in view of the fact that Powell is pronounced Pole or Po-ell) I would prefer something like Powellians, Powellologists, Powellographers or even Powellites. |
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Do you know why Powell refused the knighthood he was offered in 1973
by the then Prime Minister Edward Heath?
The only substantive comment I have been able to locate is in AP's Journals 1987-1989, the entry for Friday 13 November 1987, the day he was offered the Companion of Honour. His comment there is that he felt a knighthood to be "undesirable for a writer", though he never really says why or in what way he felt this to be the case. |
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I've heard that the author JIM Stewart wrote a Powellian sequence called
A Staircase in Surrey.
Can you tell me anything about it?
Yes. This is a series of five novels by JIM Stewart (aka. detective writer Michael Innes):
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I've read somewhere that one of the characters in The Fisher King
is based on a newspaper editor.
Is this true?
This does indeed seem to be true. According to AP in his Journals 1982-1986 (pp 78-79, 273) the character Lamont in The Fisher King is in part based on Harold Evans, former editor of The Times and The Sunday Times. |
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Last updated: 11 March 2005, Keith Marshall |