Durrell, Lawrence George

Durrell, Lawrence George (1912–90), poet, novelist, and travel writer, was first recognized as a poet: his collections include A Private Country (1943); Cities, Plains and People (1946); On Seeming to Presume (1948); The Tree of Idleness (1955); and Collected Poems (1960). His first novel of interest, The Black Book: An Agon (Paris, 1938; London, 1973) is a mildly pornographic fantasia, peopled by prostitutes and failed artists. He achieved fame with the publication of Justine (1957), the first volume of his Alexandria Quartet; Balthazar and Mountolive followed in 1958, and Clea in 1960. Set in Alexandria during the period just before the Second World War, the first three novels cover roughly the same period of time and the same events, while Clea advances the action in time; the central topic, according to Durrell, is ‘an investigation of modern love’. Principal characters include the narrator L. G. Darley, his Greek mistress Melissa, the British ambassador Mountolive, the British intelligence agent Pursewarden, the artist Clea, and Justine (who is Jewish) and her wealthy Coptic husband Nessim. The style is ornate, lyrical, and sensual, perhaps too much so for English tastes, as the Quartet tends to be more highly regarded abroad than in Britain. Durrell's later novels include Tunc (1968), Nunquam (1970), Monsieur (1974), and Constance (1982). His best-known travel books are Prospero's Cell (1945), based on his pre-war years in Corfu; Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953), based on his experiences as Information Officer in Rhodes, 1945–6; and Bitter Lemons (1957), on Cyprus.

Lawrence Durrell's brother, the zoologist Gerald Malcolm Durrell (1925–95), was also a writer, well known for his popular accounts of animal life and his own zoo on Jersey: titles include The Overloaded Ark (1953), My Family and Other Animals (1956), Island Zoo (1961).