Unsavory artists, titled boobs, and charlatans with an affinity for Freud―such are the oddballs whose antics animate the early novels of the late British master Anthony Powell. A genius of social satire delivered with a very dry wit, Powell builds his comedies on the foibles of British high society between the wars, delving into subjects as various as psychoanalysis, the film industry, publishing, and (of course) sex. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, these slim novels reveal the early stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in Powell’s epic A Dance to the Music of Time .   In What’s Become of Waring , Powell lampoons a world with which he was intimately acquainted: the inner workings of a small London publisher. But even as Powell eviscerates the publishers’ less than scrupulous plotting in his tale of wild coincidences, mistaken identity, and romance, he never strays to the far side of farce.    Written from a vantage point both high and necessarily narrow, Powell’s early novels nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and what makes people behave as they do. Filled with eccentric characters and piercing insights, Powell’s work is achingly hilarious, human, and true. “The quest for the historical Waring becomes the wildly entangled pursuit and exposure of a literary charlatan, and involves a gallery of British comic types. . . . There is laughter all the way. . . . A must for Powell devotees.” -- Edmund Fuller ― New York Times Book Review “Gratifyingly eccentric.” -- Paul Pickrel ― Harper’s Magazine “A Christmas tree for the display of a grand, glittering array of splendid comic characters doing funny things. Mr. Powell’s prose is beautiful and hilarious, and the whole nutty arrangement ends too soon.” ― New Yorker “I do not see how anyone who is not an imbecile can fail to be amused and delighted with What’s Become of Waring .” ― Observer “A master of irony . . . a writer of social comedy as revelatory as any written by Evelyn Waugh or Henry Green.” -- Leo Lerman ― New York Times Anthony Powell  (1905-2000) was one of the most critically acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century. His landmark twelve-volume novel, A Dance to the Music of Time,  was named to the Modern Library's list of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century. His other novels include  Afternoon Men ,  Venusberg ,  From a View to a Death ,  Agents and Patients ,  What's Become of Waring? ,  O, How the Wheel Becomes It! , and  The Fisher King , all published by the University of Chicago Press. A condensed version of his four-volume memoir,  To Keep the Ball Rolling , is also available from the University of Chicago Press. What's Become of Waring A Novel By Anthony Powell The University of Chicago Press Copyright © 1939 Anthony Powell All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-226-13718-6 CHAPTER 1 I WAS sitting in the Guards' Chapel under the terra-cotta lunette which contains the Centurion saying to one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to his servant, Do this, and he doeth it. The occasion was the wedding of a girl called Fitzgibbon who was marrying a young man in the Coldstream. The incident took place during the address. As the parson was approaching the end of his discourse something flicked through the air and landed in my hat resting brim upwards on the pew beside me. On examination the object turned out to be a page torn from the service paper, folded several times and inscribed in pencil: Put all your money under the seat or I'll drill a hole through you . It was signed Red-handed Mike above a skull-and-crossbones. The exceptional circumstances of the arrival and contents of this missive at such a juncture in such a place was some preparation, when, after choosing a suitable moment, I glanced over my shoulder, for the sight of Eustace Bromwich sitting two rows back. At the same time his presence was unexpected because he was said to be travelling in the Near East. Dark red in the face, with gleaming white eyeballs, he was staring severely at the altar as if presiding over a court-martial which had to try a particularly disagreeable case. He made no sign of recognition except for frowning and brushing up slightly the left-hand half of his moustache. The dowagers on either side of him, and beyond them the field-marshal with his nieces, sat impassive, so that Eustace's communication had escaped their notice. The rest of the service passed without interruption. The register was signed while the choir sang Handel's Where'ere you walk . From the confusion of sage-green and dull gold the wedding march from Lohengrin , executed by a cluster of crimson musicians, growled out through the pillars. There was a wait while the photographers did their business; and the crowd began to struggle towards the doors