Authors: Lawrence Durrell
The Greek Islands (39 page)
Lawrence Durrell was born in 1912 in India, where his father was an English civil engineer. As a boy he attended the Jesuit College at Darjeeling, and he was later sent to St Edmund’s School, Canterbury. His first authentic literary work was
The
Black Book
, which appeared in Paris in 1938 under the aegis of Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. ‘In the writing of it I first heard the sound of my own voice …’ he later wrote. The novel was praised by T. S. Eliot, who published his first collection of poems,
A Private Country
, in 1943. The first of the island books,
Prospero’s Cell
, a guide to Corfu, appeared in 1945. It was
followed
by
Reflections on a Marine Venus
, about Rhodes.
Bitter
Lemons
, his account of life in Cyprus, won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize in 1957. Subsequently he drew on his years in Greece for
The Greek Islands
. Durrell’s wartime sojourn in Egypt led to his masterpiece,
The Alexandria Quartet
, which he completed in southern France, where he settled permanently in 1957. Between the
Quartet
and
The Avignon Quintet
he wrote the two-decker
Tunc
and
Nunquam
, now united as
The Revolt of Aphrodite
. His oeuvre includes plays, a book of criticism,
translations
, travel writings (
Spirit of Place
),
Collected Poems
, a
children’s
adventure, and humorous stories about the diplomatic corps. His correspondence with his lifelong friend Henry Miller has also been published.
Caesar’s Vast Ghost
, his reflections on the history and culture of Provence, including a late flowering of poems, appeared a few days before his death at his home in Sommières in 1990.
NOVELS
The Black Book
The Dark Labyrinth
White Eagles Over Serbia
The Alexandria Quartet
Justine
Balthazar
Mountolive
Clea
The Revolt of Aphrodite
Tunc, Nunquam
The Avignon Quintet
Monsieur, Livia, Constance,
Sebastian, Quinx
TRAVEL
Prospero’s Cell
Reflections on a Marine Venus
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
The Greek Islands
Caesar’s Vast Ghost
Spirit of Place
POETRY
Collected Poems 1931–74
HUMOUR
Antrobus Complete
CORRESPONDENCE
The Durrell–Miller Letters 1935–80
BIOGRAPHY
Lawrence Durrell: A Biography
by Ian MacNiven
Illustrated edition 1978
Designed by George Rainbird Limited
Published by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74 –77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Lawrence Durrell, 1978
© Estate of Lawrence Durrell, 2002
The right of Lawrence Durrell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26525–1