What's Become of Waring

Nonetheless, it marks a significant step in Powell's development, anticipating his masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time, via the introduction of the self-effacing first-person narrator.

Coincidence, often noted as a significant feature of Dance, here plays a larger role than in any of Powell's other early fiction.

The novel shows clearly the relative thinness of the curtain of civility with which society wraps itself and how easily that fabric frays.

The inner workings and tensions of the publishing business (in which Powell was himself employed for about a decade) and the assortment of individuals brought together through a shared interest in spiritualism provide many opportunities for developing conflicting personal desires amongst the various characters.

The novel ends with a series of comic reversals, not untinged with melancholy, and the narrator's realization that most of life involves the pursuit of power.