''Casanova's Chinese Restaurant'' is a novel by

Anthony Powell Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work '' A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English. Powell ...

(). It forms the fifth volume of the twelve-volume sequence ''

A Dance to the Music of Time ''A Dance to the Music of Time'' is a 12-volume ''Book series#History, roman-fleuve'' by English writer Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power ...

'', and was originally published in 1960 Many of the events of the novel were included in the

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

adaptation broadcast on the United Kingdom's

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

in 1997, comprising part of the second of four episodes. There was also an earlier, more comprehensive,

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

adaptation. As with several of the earlier volumes, there is a time-overlap with previous books, the first part returning to the period before the death of Mr. Deacon. The ruined door of a fictional

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

pub, the Mortimer, provides the narrative frame of the volume. However, ''Casanova's Chinese Restaurant'' concentrates on a new set of characters, principally the composer Hugh Moreland, (based on Powell's close friend Constant Lambert), his fiancée Matilda, and the critic Maclintick and his wife, Audrey, whose unhappy marriage forms a key part of the narrative. The interweaving of historical with fictional events is more notable here, and is used to illuminate the characters, as for example in Erridge's ill-considered departure for the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. Much of the book's reception was positive. ''Casanova's Chinese Restaurant'' is dedicated to Harry & Rosie- Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid and Rosie, Lady d’Avigdor Goldsmid.Jay, Mike. (2013) "Who Were the Dedicatees of Powell’s Works?" ''The Anthony Powell Society Newsletter.''50 (spring): 9–10.

References

1960 British novels Novels by Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time Chinese restaurants Fictional restaurants Fiction set in 1936 Fiction set in 1937 Heinemann (publisher) books {{1960s-novel-stub