AP Non-Dance Fiction FAQ

This page is a repository of frequently asked questions about Anthony Powell, his life and his works. Thanks to all the various correspondents for these items and questions. Further items will be placed here, as available, if the information is not available elsewhere on this site. We will be delighted to receive items for possible inclusion by E-mail.

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Which city did AP use as the model for the setting of Venusberg? Was it Riga or Tallinn, or maybe some fusion of the two?
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?
I've read somewhere that one of the characters in The Fisher King is based on a newspaper editor. Is this true?

Which city did AP use as the model for the setting of Venusberg? Was it Riga or Tallin, or maybe some fusion of the two?
AP is quite specific about the setting for Venusberg:
Venusberg, again, recalls some of these Finnish interludes [summer holidays while a student at Oxford - Ed] ... The town described ... is a mixture of Helsinki (where we lived ...) and Reval (as Tallin was still apt to be called) ... where I spent a weekend. The architectural admixture of this ancient Hansa city, with the modernity of Helsinki, apparently produced an approximation to Riga ... which I did not visit.
[Anthony Powell; To Keep the Ball Rolling: Infants of the Spring; p.172]

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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 Ł2000 (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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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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