Anthony Powell's Diaries, Photo Albums, and Novels: Rare Book of the Week

A variety of lots at Bonhams' current Books, Atlases, and Manuscripts online auction ending November 19 include unique materials relating to novelist Anthony Powell best known for his A Dance to the Music of Time novel series.

These include 10 first editions in dustjackets of individual volumes of Dance (estimate: £2,000 - £4,000) which come with the author's personal bookplates in them, and four of which are inscribed, very probably to his wife Violet, with variations of “With love from Tony”. Additionally, there are 11 volumes of Powell's working copies which come with textual corrections in pen and pencil (estimate: £2,000 - £3,000). 

First editions of a selection of some of his other novels going under the hammer include What’s Become of Waring marked up for a new edition (estimate: £2,000 - £3,000), and Venusberg (with an inscription to Violet “For Violet Georgiana Powell from an admirer. October 1936”, estimate: £1,500 - £2,500).

Powell’s photograph albums feature around 600 private photos including some of the real life inspirations for characters in his novels. Bonhams describes them as “offering a compelling insight into his social milieu and activities in the 1930-40s, researches into his family history and genealogy, interests (theatre, printing, the arts), and his distinctive collage/montage/cut-and-paste aesthetic, all of which fuelled and underpinned the writing of his celebrated Dance sequence of novels.” The albums come with two scrapbooks he put together (estimate: £8,000 - £12,000).

Powellophiles will also be interested in the eight passports on offer, plus 57 volumes of his pocket/desk diaries from 1934 to 1993 which come with a guide price of £5,000 - £8,000 and are kept in a small tin trunk with “Mrs. E.S. Powell” written on it in white ink. According to Bonhams these chart “the shifts in his social life and friendships from his literary connections, infatuations and marriage in the thirties, his wartime volunteering with A.R.P., literary successes in the fifties and sixties, and later years at his home, the Chantry in Somerset, conjuring up the real-life world of Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time sequence.”

As an example of what these include, in 1937, travelled to Hollywood and the diaries mention meetings with film producers from Paramount, tea with Douglas Fairbanks, and bumping into F Scott Fitzgerald at the MGM canteen. Later years include entries noting George Orwell’s funeral, and chats with poets Edith Sitwell and John Betjeman.