This listing closed and did not sell. The item has been relisted.

Browse for similar listings in Author D-F
View the relisted item

Other listings you might like

Description

This is an auction for JUSTINE by Lawrence Durrell.

Volume One of the Alexandria Quartet.

Introduced by Peter Porter.

This is a Folio Society hardback in its original slipcase.

From Wikipedia:

"Justine, published in 1957, is one of four interlocking novels which each tell various aspects of a complex story of passion and deception from various points of view. The quartet is set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria of the 1930s and 1940s, and the city itself becomes as much of a complex character as the human protagonists. Justine is narrated by an Irishman, who is not named in this novel, but is referred to as "Darley" in the later novels of the quartet. He is a struggling writer and schoolmaster. From a remote Greek island, he retells his time in Alexandria and his tragic romance with Justine - a beautiful, rich, mysterious Jewish woman who is married to a wealthy Egyptian Copt, Nessim. The narrator and Justine embark on a love affair, and as they try to conceal their growing passion from Nessim, the narrator's friend, the love triangle grows increasingly desperate and dangerous. The novel is an experimental work of fiction in terms of structure and style. There are no specific references to dates, although the reader may construct a rough chronology in retrospect. However, this is problematic because the narrative moves back and forth in time, often without explicit transitions. Durrell utilizes a highly poetic, allusive, and indirect prose style, similar to the "epiphanies" of James Joyce, which places more emphasis on the lyrical dimension of the novel..."