The Alexandria Quartet

{{short description|1957-1960 Four books by Lawrence Durrell}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox book|  | name = The Alexandria Quartet | title_orig = | translator = | image = Image:TheAlexandriaQuartet.jpg | caption = First UK editions | image_size = 281 | author = [[Lawrence Durrell]] | cover_artist = | country = Great Britain | language = English | series = The Alexandria Quartet | genre = | publisher = [[Faber and Faber]] (UK) & [[E. P. Dutton|Dutton]] (US) | release_date = 1962 | media_type = Print (hardback and paperback) | pages = 1110 (Faber hardback) | isbn = 0-571-08609-8 | isbn_note = (paperback edition) | oclc= 17367466 | preceded_by = [[Bitter Lemons]] | followed_by = [[The Revolt of Aphrodite]] }}

'''''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 [[World War II|Second World War]]. The fourth book is set six years later.

The work was reissued in one volume in 1962, and Durrell used the occasion to make "numerous" revisions.<ref>Alan G. Thomas and James A. Brigham, ''Lawrence Durrell, An Illustrated Checklist'' (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), p. 17.</ref> The 1962 edition represents his final thoughts.

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 (Durrell novel)|Justine]]'' (1957) :* ''[[Balthazar (novel)|Balthazar]]'' (1958) :* ''[[Mountolive]]'' (1958) :* ''[[Clea (novel)|Clea]]'' (1960).

In a 1959 ''[[Paris Review]]'' interview,<ref>{{cite magazine | url=http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/4720 | title=Lawrence Durrell: The Art of Fiction No. 23 (interview) | last=Andrewski | first=Gene |author2=Mitchell, Julian | magazine=The Paris Review | date=23 April 1959 | accessdate=1 July 2006 }} pp. 26–27.</ref> 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 [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels|100 best English-language novels of the 20th century]].

==Footnotes== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== *Haag, Michael. ''Alexandria: City of Memory''. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexandria Quartet, The}} [[Category:Alexandria in popular culture]] [[Category:Novels by Lawrence Durrell]] [[Category:Novel sequences]] [[Category:Literary tetralogies]] [[Category:Novels set in Egypt]] [[Category:Faber & Faber books]]