Agents

1912 - 1990 

Lawrence Durrell was born in India and spent most of his life outside Britain, living in France, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Argentina and Corfu.

Although his formal education was unsuccessful and he failed his university entrance examinations, Durrell had started writing poetry at the age of fifteen: his first collection, Quaint Fragment, was published in 1931.

On January 22, 1935, Durrell married Nancy Isobel Myers, the first of his four marriages. Later that year Durrell, Nancy, his mother and his siblings (including brother Gerald Durrell) moved to the Greek island of Corfu. In the same year his first novel, Pied Piper of Lovers, was published by Cassell; he also wrote to Henry Miller expressing intense admiration for his novel Tropic of Cancer, which sparked an enduring friendship and mutually critical relationship. The two got on well as they had similar subjects at the time: Durrell's The Black Book abounded with "four-letter words... grotesques,... [and] its mood [as] equally as apocalyptic" as Tropic.

A writer of great versatility whose work included drama, poetry and travel literarture, he is probably best known for The Alexandria Quartet which has become one of the most influential works of the century. It was in 1957, that he published the first part Justine. Justine, Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1959) and Clea (1960) all deal with events in pre-Second World War Alexandria. The first three books tell essentially the same story, but from different perspectives. Only in the final part, Clea, does the story advance and finish.

Durrell suffered from emphysema for many years: he died of a stroke at his house in Sommières in November 1990.

Major works
Novels
Pied Piper of Lovers (1935)
Panic Spring, under the pseudonym Charles Norden (1937)
The Black Book (1938; republished in the UK on January 1, 1977 by Faber and Faber)
The Dark Labyrinth (1958; published as "Cefalu" in 1947)
White Eagles Over Serbia (1957)
The Alexandria Quartet-Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958), Clea (1960)
The Revolt of Aphrodite-Tunc (1968), Nunquam (1970)
The Avignon Quintet-Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness (1974); Livia: or, Buried Alive (1978); Constance: or, Solitary Practices (1982); Sebastian: or, Ruling Passions (1983); Quinx: or, The Ripper's Tale (1985)

Travel
Prospero's Cell: A guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corcyra (1945; republished 2000) (ISBN 0-571-20165-2)
Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953)
Bitter Lemons (1957; republished as Bitter Lemons of Cyprus 2001)
Blue Thirst (1975)
Sicilian Carousel (1977)
The Greek Islands (1978)
Caesar's Vast Ghost (1990)

Poetry
Selected Poems: 1953-1963 Edited by Alan Ross (1964)
Collected Poems: 1931-1974 Edited by James A. Brigham (1980)

Drama
Sappho: A Play in Verse (1950)
An Irish Faustus: A Morality in Nine Scenes (1963)
Acte (1964)

Humor
Esprit de Corps (1957)
Stiff Upper Lip (1958)
Sauve Qui Peut (1966)

Letters and essays
A Key to Modern British Poetry (1952)
Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays on Travel (1969) edited by Alan G. Thomas
Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington-Lawrence Durrell Correspondence (1981) edited by Ian S. MacNiven and Harry T. Moore
A Smile in the Mind's Eye (1982)
The Durrell-Miller Letters: 1935-80 (1988) edited by Ian S. MacNiven

Visit the International Lawrence Durrell Society website.