Rare and previously unpublished essays and letters showcasing "Durrell's wit, elegance, philosophy, joie de vivre and flaming intelligence" ( The Irish Times)."The proverb says that whoever sees the world from the back of an elephant learns the secrets of the jungle and becomes a seer. I had to be content to become a poet." ?Lawrence DurrellBest known for his novels and travel writing, Lawrence Durrell defied easy classification within twent...

A breathtaking novel of passion and politics, set in the hotbed of Palestine in the 1940s, by a master of twentieth-century fictionIt is the eve of Britain’s withdrawal from Palestine in 1948, a moment that will mark the beginning of a new Israel. But the course of history is uncertain, and Israel’s territorial enemies plan to smother the new country at its birth. Judith Roth has escaped the concentration camps in Germany only to be plunged into the new conflict, o...

Author's first novel, product of a lengthy correspondence with Henry Miller and published by the later for Jack Kahane in the late '30s. Laid the groundwork for Durrell's earth-shattering Alexandria Quartet decades later.

Excerpt Let us take a novelist-in-the-cupboard peep at Tarquin. He has already managed to crawl out of his tepid bed and lift the window sash. The sight of the snow disgusts him. By instinct he hops back and draws the covers up to his chin, trying to hurl himself back into dream with skinny ferocity. No good. Then he remembers the dream he was having and broods pleasantly upon it. A girl on a riverbank. Or boy? It would be better as a boy on a verdant bank, a Cretan saffron gatherer now, t...

In this new selection from the poetry of Lawrence Durrell (the first for thirty years), Peter Porter has drawn on the full range of the published work, from A Private Country (1943) to Vega (1973), and has provided a long overdue revaluation of Durrell's poetic career. In his detailed and generous introduction, Porter makes the case for A Private Country as one of the most accomplished debut collections of the twentieth century, and traces...

A collection of works spanning the entire career of great 20th-century American writer Henry Miller, edited and introduced by Lawrence Durrell.In 1958, when Henry Miller was elected to membership in the American Institute of Arts and Letters, the citation described him as: "The veteran author of many books whose originality and richness of technique are matched by the variety and daring of his subject matter. His boldness of approach and intense curiosity concernin...

Justine is the first volume in The Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy business man Nessim, a mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly-charged atmosphere which, caught famously by Durrell’s poetic language, made Justine (1957), and the three novels that complet...

The politics of love, the intrigues of desire … love and murder, moved obscurely in the dark corners of Alexandria’s streets and squares, brothels and drawing-rooms moved like a great congress of eels in the slime of plot and counter-plot…’ In Balthazar, the second volume in Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, the story and the characters come more clearly into focus. Darley, the reflective Englishman, receives from Balthazar, the pathologist, a mass of notes which attempt to explain what really...

‘I knew that Clea would share everything with me, withholding nothing not even the look of complicity which women reserve only for their mirrors.’ In Clea, the concluding part of The Alexandria Quartet, Darley returns to Alexandria now caught by war-fever. The conflagration has its effect on his circle on Nessim and Justine, Balthazar and Clea, Mountolive and Pombal a clarity of purpose emerges as the story moves towards its cadence.

Justine is the first volume in The Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim, a Mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly charged atmosphere which, caught famously by Durrell’s poetic language, made Justine (1957), and the three novels that complete...

"This is not a political book, but simple a somewhat impressionistic study of the moods and atmospheres of Cyprus during the troubled years 1953-6." So wrote Lawrence Durrell in the preface to Bitter Lemons. Durrell, who lived abroad for much of his life, brilliantly captures the romance, beauty, excitement and sadness of the island, and the lives of the people of Bellapaix where he bought a house. In a compelling and atmospheric account beautifully suited to the Spoken Word mediu...

‘With the open sesame of language ready to hand, he suddenly began to find himself really penetrating a foreign country’ In Mountolive the third volume in Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, the events surrounding the interwoven community of Nessim, Justine, Narouz, Pursewarden and the other major characters are given a very different perspective. The intrigues and complex relationships are seen through the political prism of a world plunging towards war. David Mountolive, once emotionally invol...