''Books Do Furnish a Room'' is a novel by Anthony Powell, the tenth in the twelve-novel sequence '' A Dance to the Music of Time''. It was first published in 1971 and, like the other volumes, remains in print.

Synopsis

The book conveys the atmosphere of

post-war austerity Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...

as the characters that have survived attempt to resume their former life after the interruption of the conflict. It deals in particular with the chaotic career of X. Trapnel as a writer and the brief life of the new magazine ''Fission''. This is sponsored by Rosie Manasch and published by the left-wing firm of Quiggin and Craggs (the latter now knighted and married to Gipsy Jones). Also working for the firm is Ada Leintwardine, who Nick Jenkins first meets while she is acting as temporary secretary to Sillery, and to whom Quiggin proposes marriage after the firm is taken over at the end of the novel. Associated with the magazine are Books-do-furnish-a-room Bagshaw, the general editor; Nick, who acts as reviews editor; and Kenneth Widmerpool, now a Labour MP, writing on politics and economics. As always, the story is narrated by Nick Jenkins, who is currently researching a book on Robert Burton's ''

Anatomy of Melancholy ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (full title: ''The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Ph ...

'', quotations from which are frequently applied by way of commentary to the different situations he encounters in the novel. During its course Nick and his Tolland relations attend the funeral after Erridge's early death; it is also attended by Widmerpool and his wife Pamela, who typically manages to disrupt the ceremony and the family gathering afterwards. Towards the end of the novel, she leaves Widmerpool to live in squalor with Trapnel for awhile, finally returning to Widmerpool after scattering the manuscript of Trapnel's new novel into the canal for him to discover on returning from an evening's drinking.

References

1971 British novels Works set in libraries Novels by Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time Heinemann (publisher) books {{1970s-novel-stub