The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [0]
JUSTINE
ALEXA
NDRIA
BALTHAZAR
QUART
ET
MOUNTOLIVE
LAWREN
CE
CLEA
DURREL
L
[THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET is also available in a cloth- bound edition]
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET
JUSTINE, BALTHAZAR, MOUNTOLIVE, CLEA
by
LAWRENCE DURRELL
‘He has achieved the rare feat of perfectly balancing and intertwining emot ion, sensation and thinking, through four novels all so closely woven together that once you ha ve them all in your head they fuse and it is no longer possible to separate one from the other three…. If ever a work bore an instantly recogni zable signature on every sentence, this is it. It is in fact a formidable, glittering achievement; and not the least remarkable thing about it is that in spite of the all-pervading spirit of Alexandria, it has, too, a timelessness and placelessness peculiar to works that are big enough to make a world of their own.’ The Times Literary Supplement
FABER
paper covered
EDITIONS
THE
ALEXANDRIA QUARTET
books by Lawrence Durrell
*
novels
NUNQUAM
TUNC
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET:
Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
JUSTINE
BALTHAZAR
MOUNTOLIVE
CLEA
THE DARK LABYRINTH
*
travel
BITTER LEMONS
REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS
PROSPERO’S CELL
*
humour
SAUVE QUI PEUT
STIFF UPPER LIP
ESPRIT DE CORPS
*
poetry
COLLECTED POEMS
SELECTED POEMS 1935-1963
THE IKONS
THE TREE OF IDLENESS
*
drama
SAPPHO
AN IRISH FAUSTUS
ACTE
*
letters
LAWRENCE DURRELL AND HENRY MILLER:
A Private Corresponde nce
SPIRIT OF PLACE:
Letters and Essays on Travel
*
for young people
WHITE EAGLES OVER SERBIA
The
Alexandria Quartet
by
LAWRENCE DURRELL
JUSTINE
BALTHAZAR
MOUNTOLIVE
CLEA
FABER AND FABER
London
Justine first published in 1957
Balthazar first published in 1958
Mountolive first published in 1958
Clea first published in 1960
First published in this edition 1968
Reprinted 1969, 1970
by Faber and Faber Limited
24 Russell Square London W.C.I
Printed in Great Britain by
C. Tinling & Co. Ltd. , London and Prescot. All rights reserved
ISBN 0 571 08609 8 ( Faber Paper Covered Edition)
ISBN 0 571 05204 5 ( Hard Bound Edition)
CONDITIONS OF SALE
This book is sold to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent,
re-sold, hired out or otherwise cir-
culated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a sim ilar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
This one-volume edition
© Lawrence Durrell 1962
Balthazar © Lawrence Durrell 195
Mountolive © Lawrence Durrell 1958
Clea © Lawrence Durrell 1960
PREFACE
THIS group of four novels is intended to be read as a single work under the collective title of The Alexandria Quartet; a suitable descriptive subtitle might be ‘a word continuum’. In trying to work out my form I adopted, as a rough analogy, the relativity proposition. The first three were related in an intercalary fashion, being ‘siblings’ of each other and not ‘sequels’; only the last novel was intended to be a true sequel and to unleash the time dimen-sion. The whole was intended as a challenge to the serial form of the conventional novel: the time-saturated novel of the day. Among the workpoints at the end I have sketched in a number of possible ways of continuing to deploy these characters and situations in further instalments — but this is only to suggest that even if the group of books were extended indefinitely the result would never become roman fleuve; if, that is to say, the axis of the work has been properly laid down it should be possible to radiate from it in any direction without losing the strictness and congruity of its relation to ‘a continuum’.
It has been possible, for this edition, to correct a number of small slips pointed out by readers and critics, and also to add some small passages which were cut out of the original volumes in the MS. stage. The changes are not very great. Balthazar and