The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during the Second World War. The fourth book is set six years later.
As Durrell explains in his preface to Balthazar, the four novels are an exploration of relativity and the notions of continuum and subject–object relation, with modern love as the theme. The Quartet's first three books offer the same sequence of events through several points of view, allowing individual perspectives of a single set of events. The fourth book shows change over time.
The four novels are:
Justine (1957)
Balthazar (1958)
Mountolive (1958)
Clea (1960).
In a 1959 Paris Review interview,[1] Durrell described the ideas behind the Quartet in terms of a convergence of Eastern and Western metaphysics, based on Einstein's overturning of the old view of the material universe, and Freud's doing the same for the concept of stable personalities, yielding a new concept of reality.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Alexandria Quartet number 70 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
^Andrewski, Gene; Mitchell, Julian (23 April 1959). "Lawrence Durrell: The Art of Fiction No. 23 (interview)". The Paris Review. Retrieved 1 July 2006. pp. 26–27.
and 20 Related for: The Alexandria Quartet information
TheAlexandriaQuartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success...
siblings moved to the island of Corfu. Durrell spent many years thereafter living around the world. His most famous work is TheAlexandriaQuartet, published...
Durrell (1912–1990), a diplomat and writer, best known for writing TheAlexandriaQuartet, in addition to travel literature. Margery Durrell (1915–1916);...
Lawrence Durrell's TheAlexandriaQuartet: Exile and Return. Routledge. ISBN 9780429782398. Lillios, Anna (2004). Lawrence Durrell and the Greek World. Danvers...
1958, is the third volume in TheAlexandriaQuartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt, around World War II, the four novels...
.. JN & JF: I notice that thequartet which begins with The Virgin in the Garden is sometimes called The Frederica Quartet. ASB: My paperback publisher...
The history of Alexandria dates back to the city's founding, by Alexander the Great, in 331 BC. Yet, before that, there were some big port cities just...
Durrell writes about the lake using its ancient name Lake Mareotis in his tetralogy of novels TheAlexandriaQuartet, where it is the setting for a duck...
his TheAlexandriaQuartet (1957-1960). The action of the novels is set before and during World War II, largely in France, Egypt, and Switzerland. The novels...
volumes, Tunc and Nunquam, were less successful than his earlier TheAlexandriaQuartet, in part because they deviate significantly from his earlier style...
teacher in Malaya and made it the setting of The Malayan Trilogy (1956-1959). TheAlexandriaQuartet (1957-1960) was the best-known work of Lawrence Durrell...
(ancestral ties to the island through his father, Petros ("Peter") Anastasakis) Lawrence Durrell, writer and poet, author of TheAlexandriaQuartet, resided on...
Hopeful Monsters, by Nicholas Mosley (2000) TheAlexandriaQuartet, by Lawrence Durrell (1957–1960) The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares (1940)...
selected by the Israeli Film Board as their nominee for the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 1983. TheAlexandriaQuartet by Lawrence Durrell...
Ellroy: gritty and scurrilous. At other moments it seems as though theAlexandriaQuartet had been transposed to Mexico and populated by ragged versions of...
Chandler's The Lady in the Lake (Knopf, 1943) also mentions a chypre-scented, monogrammed handkerchief. In Lawrence Durrell's AlexandriaQuartet (Mountolive...
relating it to Angkor Wat and the Kundalini. The purpose of the work was to go beyond his previous tetralogy TheAlexandriaQuartet. In an interview, Durrell...
relativistic literary works[citation needed]: Gogol's Dead Souls; TheAlexandriaQuartet by Lawrence Durrell; Raymond Queneau's Zazie dans le métro. Some...
in the forties and fifties, and why it is impossible for Europeans or Americans to understand, give them this book. It makes TheAlexandriaQuartet look...
player Justine (Durrell novel), the first book in TheAlexandriaQuartet by Lawrence Durrell Justine (de Sade novel) or The Misfortunes of Virtue, a 1791...
Global Information