Anthony Powell earned a reputation as a literary giant within the generation of Waugh, Orwell and Greene, best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time. These memoirs reveal Powell - the man and author - providing an insider's view of the British literary scene and social elite from the 1920s to the 1980s. In these pages, Powell observes the obscenity trial sparked by Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Shirley Temple's libel suit after Graham Greene reviewed Wee Willie Winkie with 'more than his usual verve'.Throughout, Powell paints vivid, witty and superbly written portraits of his contemporaries, other authors including Kingsley Amis, V.S. Naipaul, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.Featuring an illuminating new introduction by Louisa Young, TO KEEP THE BALL ROLLING is the abridged version of Anthony Powell's four volumes of memoir, first published between 1976 and 1982.

'He is, as Proust was before him, the great literary chronicler of his culture in his time.' GUARDIAN'A Dance to the Music of Time' is universally acknowledged as one of the great works of English literature. Reissued now in this definitive edition, it stands ready to delight and entrance a new generation of readers.In this sixth volume, with Britain on the brink of war yet again, Nick Jenkins reflects back on his childhood growing up in the shadow of World War I. Wanting to follow in his father's footsteps, Nick sets his sights on becoming an officer in the Army, and asks his old school friend Widmerpool, who is gaining prominence in the business world, if he will help him. But reserves lists are quickly filling up with names, and it's not long until the threat of war is the one thing on everyone's mind.