Lawrence Durrell

In 1935 a young Englishman living on Corfu wrote enthusiastically to a middle-aged Brooklynite who had just published a succ s de scandale in Paris: "...Tropic of Cancer] turns the corner into a new life which has regained its bowels." Henry Miller, realizing that in Lawrence Durrell he had hooked his ideal reader, responded: "You're the first Britisher who's written me an intelligent letter about the book." Thus began a correspondence that ended only with Miller's death in 1980--nearly 1,000,000 words later. The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80 contains an extensive and representative selection of the total correspondence. Almost half of the present volume has never been published before, including some recently recovered "lost" letters; in addition, many passages expurgated from letters published in 1963 have been restored. Editor Ian S. MacNiven of the State University of New York, Maritime College, is quite right to regard the Durrell-Miller correspondence as a dual biography of the creative lives of two of this century's great literary iconoclasts, a biography "At once as serious as Schopenhauer and as winning as wine."

Rediscover one of the twentieth century's greatest romances: this seductive tale of four tangled lovers in wartime Egypt, introduced by André Aciman (Call Me By Your Name and Find Me), is 'wonderful' (Elif Shafak)I remembered Justine saying harshly as she lay in bed: 'We use each other like axes to cut down the ones we really love'.Alexandria: the great winepress of love. Trams, palm trees, and watermelon stalls lie honey-bathed in sunlight; in darkened bedrooms, sweaty lovers unfurl. But in a world trembling on the brink of war, passion and death are inextricable. When a penniless schoolteacher begins an affair with Justine - a married Egyptian lady of unparalleled glamour - their partners are sucked into a whirlpool of jealousy and violence. One of the world's greatest romances, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell's scandalous 'investigation of modern love' set the world alight in 1957 and - as André Aciman reveals - it burns just as brightly today.What Readers Are Saying:'Sometimes you discover a new author and know you're going to be friends for life ... One of the most beautiful books I've ever read.''I absolutely adored this book ... I felt sucked into it with an amazing force by the beauty of the words ... The backdrop of 1930s Egypt's literary circles and bohemian relationships is mesmerising ... Breathtaking.''Shimmering and dreamlike ... One of the most beautifully written books I've read ... All of life is here; can't wait for the next one.''Lush, brutal, beautiful ... Durrell captured a place and time that will never exist again.''What makes this novel truly spectacular is the language, the episodic jumps in time, the lush lyricism, and how Durrell so deftly manages to tie this all into both the city of Alexandria and the themes of passion, love, and jealousy. 'What The Critics Said:'A masterpiece.' Guardian'One of the great works of English fiction.' Times 'Dazzlingly exuberant ... Reckless ... Superb.' Observer'Brave and brazen ... Lush and grandiose.' Independent 'Legendary ... Casts a spell ... Reader, watch out!' Guardian'Lushly beautiful ... One of the most important works of our time.' NYTBR

"Demands comparison with the very best books of our century . . . A truly important writer . . . His people, his places are masterly."― New York Times Book Review Durrell's masterpiece is onne of the world's greatest romances, rich in political and sexual intrigue. This seductive tale of four tangled lovers in wartime Egypt is set in the city of Alexandria once home to the world's greatest library, attracting scholars dedicated solely to the pursuit of knowledge. But on the eve of World War II, the obsessed characters in this mesmerizing novel find that their pursuits lead only to bedrooms in which each seeks to know-and possess-the other.

Lose yourself in this classic 1950s Cold War spy thriller tracking a British secret agent in Communist Serbia by the celebrated of The Alexandria Quartet, perfect for fans of John le Carre.'A spellbinder ... Desperately exciting.' Daily TelegraphMethuen is a seasoned British secret agent, weary of espionage missions and desperately in need of a break - but he can't resist an assignment to investigate dirty dealings in the Balkans. A fellow British spy has been murdered in Serbia by a guerrilla gang of underground royalists, the White Eagles - but when Methuen arrives, he soon finds himself in a life-and-death struggle, pursued by both the royalists and Communists alike ...Inspired by Lawrence Durrell's own experiences in the British Foreign Office, White Eagles Over Serbia is a classic Cold War espionage thriller: a white-knuckle adventure perfect for fans of John le Carre and Graham Greene.'Exceptionally well written [and] brings back memories of boyhood classics.' Sunday Times'Vivid ... Beautiful descriptions ... Carries us expertly from one excitement to another.' PunchWhat Readers Are Saying:'All spy-novel fans should read this wonderful mysterious portrayal of post-war Balkans. Read it now!''A very good espionage / thriller novel ... Fantastic descriptions of the post war Yugoslav atmosphere ... Durrell could have given LeCarre some competition.''As a setting for adventure and intrigue, the mountains in post-WWII Serbia, are unparalleled.''A good old fashioned spy romp over the mountains.''A spy thriller very much in the British Boys Own style ... Superlative.'

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt in Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by bestselling author Elif Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love).An expat schoolteacher has spent years in exile reflecting on his turmoiled love affair with Justine, a glamorous Egyptian wife. Returning to wartime Alexandria, he finds that his old friends have suffered dramatic changes of body, mind, and fortune - and someone whom he has never really known wishes to see him. His affair with Clea, a bisexual artist, not only changes the lovers, but transforms the dead, forever - and heralds a new beginning, just as Lawrence Durrell's intoxicating masterpiece ends. 'Durrell has written about a dozen real love stories, entwined them, and explored them with a truly Proustian ferocity ... Superb.' Observer 'Lushly beautiful ... His style glows ... One of the most important works of our time.' New York Times Book Review'It is hard now to recapture the impact half a century ago of these novels' heat, luxuriance and profanity [or] his descriptions of Alexandria - its beauty, cruelty, menace, mystery, decadence ....' Spectator

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by Alaa Al Aswany (bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building).Every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position ...As the threat of world war looms over the city of Alexandria, an exiled Anglo-Irish schoolteacher unravels his erotic obsession with two women: Melissa, a fragile dancer, and Justine, a glamorous married Egyptian woman. Through conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, these intricate love affairs are cast in an ominous, sinister new light, as his private fixations become entangled with a mysterious murder plot ... One of the twentieth century's greatest masterpieces, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell's 'investigation of modern love' in the Alexandria Quartet set the world alight. Published in 1958, a year after the sensational Justine, the kaleidoscopic Balthazar burns just as brightly today.'Legendary ... Casts a spell ... A fine storyteller. Reader, watch out!' Jan Morris, Guardian'A brave and brazen work ... Lush and grandiose.' Independent 'One of the very best novelists of our time ... [such] beauty.' New York Times Book ReviewVOLUME TWO OF LAWRENCE DURRELL'S ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by William Boyd (bestselling author of Any Human Heart and Restless).'A master at creating and handling tension ... I was fascinated from the start.' Wilbur SmithDavid Mountolive, a young English diplomat, has been obsessed with Egypt ever since a youthful love affair. Returning to Alexandria as British Ambassador just before World War Two, he unravels an intricate political and religious conspiracy - one that connects a web of wildly different characters, including an exiled schoolteacher and glamorous Egyptian couple. Mountolive gradually exposes the sinister underbelly of these tangled relationships, their deceptions and betrayals mirroring the explosive turmoil of the modern Middle East - and the result is Durrell's most cinematic masterpiece. 'Astonishing ... A work of splendid craft and troubling veracity.' New York Times Book Review'A masterpiece ... Don't be fooled by the richness of the prose, the depth of the passions ... Wicked and funny.' Guardian'Dazzlingly exuberant in style and vision, reckless in ambition, wonderfully prolific in invention ... Superb.' ObserverVOLUME THREE OF LAWRENCE DURRELL'S ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

Rediscover one of the twentieth century's greatest romances in Lawrence Durrell's seductive tale of four tangled lovers in wartime Egypt that is 'stunning' (André Aciman) and 'wonderful' (Elif Shafak)'A masterpiece.' Guardian'A formidable, glittering achievement.' TLS'One of the great works of English fiction.' Times 'Dazzlingly exuberant ... Superb.' Observer'Brave and brazen ... Lush and grandiose.' Independent 'Legendary ... Casts a spell ... Reader, watch out!' Guardian'Lushly beautiful ... One of the most important works of our time.' NYTBR Alexandria, Egypt. Trams, palm trees and watermelon stalls lie honey-bathed in sunlight; in darkened bedrooms, sweaty lovers unfurl. But in a world trembling on the brink of the Second World War, passion and death are inextricable. When Darley, a penniless schoolteacher, begins an affair with Justine - a married Egyptian woman of unparalleled glamour - their partners, Melissa and Nessim, are sucked into a whirlpool of jealousy and violence. One of the twentieth-century's greatest romances, Lawrence Durrell's scandalous 'investigation of modern love' set the world alight in 1957. Rich in political and sexual intrigue, his epic masterpiece burns just as brightly today. Introduced by Jan Morris, this oomnibus edition collects all four novels together in all their glory.What Readers Are Saying - Justine (Book 1):'Sometimes you discover a new author and know you're going to be friends for life ... One of the most beautiful books I've ever read.''I absolutely adored this book ... I felt sucked into it with an amazing force by the beauty of the words ... The backdrop of 1930s Egypt's literary circles and bohemian relationships is mesmerising ... Breathtaking.''Shimmering and dreamlike ... One of the most beautifully written books I've read ... All of life is here; can't wait for the next one.''Lush, brutal, beautiful ... Durrell captured a place and time that will never exist again.''What makes this novel truly spectacular is the language, the episodic jumps in time, the lush lyricism, and how Durrell so deftly manages to tie this all into both the city of Alexandria and the themes of passion, love, and jealousy. '

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 Durrell's preoccupations and poetic personality within the wider scene. The selection of poems makes its own strong case for the continuing power and originality of this attractive, metropolitan and wholly individual body of work.

The intrigues of Justine and Balthazar multiply and deepen in the third volume of the Alexandria Quartet, giving us a novel of labyrinthine intricacy and mesmerizing beauty. In the first two novels of this profoundly innovative masterpiece, Lawrence Durrell explored two sides of a romantic quadrangle involving several inhabitants of prewar Alexandria. Now that geometry is seen from a startling new angle--through the clinical eye of a British diplomat, for whom love is only another form of statecraft. Like its predecessors, Mountolive is a novel of vertiginous disclosures, in which the betrayer and the betrayed share secret alliances and an adulterous marriage turns out to be a vehicle for the explosive passions of the modern Middle East. "Durrell is almost without peer in conveying atmosphere and mood. Even if his Alexandria never existed on this earth, it is now as real as Hawthorne's Rome, Proust's Paris, Loti's Constantinople. . . . Mountolive is dazzlingly cohesive, beautifully controlled from beginning to end."--Saturday Review "A work of splendid craft and troubling veracity."--The New York Times "Mountolive has vivid imagery and scenes of ghastly hilarity. . . . Readers will be sharply aware that they are encountering an acute intelligence pursuing a grand design."--TIME

The magnificent final volume of one of the most widely acclaimed fictional masterpieces of the postwar era. Few books have been awaited as eagerly as Clea, the sensuous and electrically suspenseful novel that resolves the enigmas of the Alexandria Quartet. Some years and one world war was after his bizarre liaisons with Melissa and Justine, the Irish migr Darley becomes enmeshed with the bisexual artist Clea. That affair not only changes the lovers, it transforms the dead as well, revealing new layers of duplicity and desire, perversity and pathos in Lawrence Durrell's masterly construction. "A massive, marvelously concrete, deeply felt statement of faith. . . . His style glows with the mineral deposits of many cultures. One of the most important works of our time has come to an end."--The New York Times Book Review "Clea rounds out the tetralogy with grace, beauty, and stunning impact. . . . This rich, exciting fare is Durrell's finest writing style, a manner of writing few living authors can equal. . . . A magnificent achievement."--The Detriot News "The reader is carried along on a current of superbly accomplished prose, as flexible and colorful as that of any contemporary writer. . . . What Durrell has given us is well worth having."--San Francisco Chronicle

The dazzling second volume of The Alexandria Quartet--an enthralling and deeply disturbing work of gorgeous surfaces and endless deceptions. In Alexandra, in the years before the Second World War, an exiled Irish schoolteacher seeks to unravel his sexual obsession with two women: the tubercular caf dancer, Melissa, and Justine, the alluring Jewish wife of a wealthy Coptic Christian. What emerges in his sessions with the psychiatrist Balthazar, however, is something far more complex--and unfathomably more sinister--than neurosis. Lawrence Durrell's kaleidoscopic narrative ushers us into a world in which no perception is reliable--and love itself is always an act of treachery. "Durrell is one of the very best novelists of our time. . . . He has a sensuous, vigorous style that I have not found equaled by any other novelist today. . . . A spontaneous, resourceful new beauty that any sensitive reader will almost certainly love."--The New York Book Review "It is difficult to sum up Balthazar; it will not be contained. It spills or slips away like smoke. The sheer writing is superb. . . . A wonderful book, a book to read many times."--The Houston Post

Chetyre chasti romana-tetralogii "Aleksandrijskij kvartet" ne zrja nosjat imena svoikh glavnykh geroev. Chitatel mozhet posmotret na odni i te zhe sobytija - zhizn egipetskoj Aleksandrii do i vo vremja vtoroj mirovoj vojny - glazami sovershenno raznykh ljudej. Pervaja kniga - "Zhjustin" - istorija slozhnogo i ekstsentrichnogo romana mezhdu molodym britanskim literatorom Darli i evropejskoj zhenoj millionera-egiptjanina Zhjustin, sluchivshegosja v Aleksandrii 1930-kh. Vtoraja - "Baltazar" - odnovremenno svoeobraznyj "vzgljad pod drugim uglom" na otnoshenija Darli i Zhjustin i uvlekatelnaja khronika antibritanskogo zagovora egipetskoj aristokratii.Tekst dannogo izdanija byl pererabotan perevodchikom V.Mikhajlinym i dopolnen statej i kommentarijami.

Chetyre chasti romana-tetralogii "Aleksandrijskij kvartet" ne zrja nosjat imena svoikh glavnykh geroev. Chitatel mozhet posmotret na odni i te zhe sobytija - zhizn egipetskoj Aleksandrii do i vo vremja vtoroj mirovoj vojny - glazami sovershenno raznykh ljudej. Zakat kolonializma, antibritanskij bunt, politicheskaja i chastnaja zhizn - javlenija i ljudi stanovjatsja namnogo ponjatnee, kogda mozhno uvidet ikh pod raznymi uglami. Sam avtor nazyval tetralogiju eksperimentom po issledovaniju kontinuuma i subektno-obektnykh svjazej na materiale sovremennoj ljubvi. V pervykh trekh knigakh: "Zhjustin", "Baltazar" i "Mauntoliv" - eti svjazi postepenno raskryvajutsja vo vsej svoej slozhnosti i zaputannosti, obedinennye vremenem i mestom. V chetvertoj knige - "Klea" - avtor svjazyvaet voedino sjuzhetnye linii i daet vozmozhnost prosledit razvitie otnoshenij i sudeb vo vremeni, zavershaja povestvovanie.Perevodchik: Mikhajlin V.

Chetyre chasti romana-tetralogii "Aleksandrijskij kvartet" nosjat imena svoikh glavnykh geroev. Chitatel mozhet posmotret na odni i te zhe sobytija glazami sovershenno raznykh ljudej. Geroem tretej knigi - "Mauntoliv" - stanovitsja vtorostepennyj personazh "Baltazara", diplomat Mauntoliv, imejuschij vesma ljubopytnoe otnoshenie k egipetskomu zagovoru. A o dalnejshikh sudbakh personazhej pervykh trekh knig tetralogii povestvuet chast chetvertaja, i zakljuchitelnaja - "Klea", - dejstvie kotoroj proiskhodit uzhe vo vremja Vtoroj mirovoj vojny. Tekst dannogo izdanija byl pererabotan perevodchikom V.Mikhajlinym i dopolnen kommentarijami.

Ett av 1900-talets stora romanverkSpårvagnar, palmer och gatustånd med vattenmeloner ligger i strålande solsken; i stadens mörka sovrum pågår kärleksakter i hemlighet. Men i en värld som står och darrar inför andra världskrigets utbrott är passion och död omöjliga att skilja åt. När Darley, en fattig skollärare i Alexandria, inleder ett förhållande med den gifta, glamourösa kvinnan Justine sätts ett ödesdigert händelseförlopp i gång. Deras respektive partners, Melissa och Nessim, dras in i en virvel av svartsjuka och våld. I Alexandriakvartetten, ett av 1900-talets stora romanverk, genomför Lawrence Durrell en omvälvande och drömlik undersökning av villkoren för den moderna kärleken. Intrigerna skruvas åt allt hårdare, och till synes lika oundvikligt när det gäller sexuella möten som världspolitiken och det annalkande kriget. I den egyptiska hamnstaden - där den engelska befolkningen har levt sedan länge - växer oron, och med oron begären. I översättning av Aida Törnell, med ett nyskrivet förord av Hans-Roland Johnsson, fil.dr i franska och forskare på Stockholms universitet. LAWRENCE DURRELL var en engelsk författare av irländsk härkomst, som föddes i Indien 1912 och avled 1990 i Frankrike. I början av författarskapet arbetade han också som diplomat och pressattaché, bland annat i Alexandria och Kairo, varifrån han hämtade miljöer och stämningar till Alexandriakvartetten, som består av fyra romaner - Justine, Mountolive, Balthazar och Clea - utgivna mellan 1957 och 1960. Här presenteras hela detta storverk i en volym. »En magnifik, glimrande bedrift.« Times Literary Supplement