Anthony Powell

**The abridged memoirs of Anthony Powell, with a new introduction from Louisa Young**'Powell can offer many of the rewards of comic creation we find in a Dickens or a Jane Austen' TLS 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.

Their nickname was the Bloody First, given to them in recognition of their courageous conduct and supreme sacrifice in battle. In the midst of the Battle of Fredericksburg, General James Kemper declared, Men of the First Virginia Regimentyou who have on so many hard-fought fields gained the name of the Bloody Firsttoday your country calls on you again to stand between her and her enemy, and I know you will do your duty. The Bloody First follows the exploits of this brave group of young men who left their families and went off to war in defense of their homeland. Through their own words, newspaper accounts, official reports, correspondence, and articles, we can relive their hardships and pain as they experience the most devastating war in our nations history. Three days before the Battle of Manassas, they were the first Confederate unit to engage in battle with the Union Army along the banks of Bull Run, and four years later their remnants were at Appomattox Court House for the final surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Among their many battle honors, the Bloody First made that immortal charge up Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg, as part of Kempers brigade in Picketts division. On that day, July 3, 1863, they suffered the highest percentage of casualties of any regiment in Kempers brigade. The Bloody First tells their story, keeping their memory and their history alive today.

Their nickname was the Bloody First, given to them in recognition of their courageous conduct and supreme sacrifice in battle. In the midst of the Battle of Fredericksburg, General James Kemper declared, Men of the First Virginia Regimentyou who have on so many hard-fought fields gained the name of the Bloody Firsttoday your country calls on you again to stand between her and her enemy, and I know you will do your duty. The Bloody First follows the exploits of this brave group of young men who left their families and went off to war in defense of their homeland. Through their own words, newspaper accounts, official reports, correspondence, and articles, we can relive their hardships and pain as they experience the most devastating war in our nations history. Three days before the Battle of Manassas, they were the first Confederate unit to engage in battle with the Union Army along the banks of Bull Run, and four years later their remnants were at Appomattox Court House for the final surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Among their many battle honors, the Bloody First made that immortal charge up Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg, as part of Kempers brigade in Picketts division. On that day, July 3, 1863, they suffered the highest percentage of casualties of any regiment in Kempers brigade. The Bloody First tells their story, keeping their memory and their history alive today.