SIGNED LIMITED FIRST ONE-VOLUME EDITION OF ALEXANDRIA QUARTET, ONE OF ONLY 500 COPIES SIGNED BY DURRELL, WITH HIS REVISIONS

DURRELL, Lawrence. The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea. London: Faber and Faber, (1962). One volume. Octavo, original orange cloth, black spine label, top edge gilt, original acetate, original slipcase. $1800.

Signed limited first one-volume edition of Durrell's magnum opus, the first to contain his revisions and additions throughout, number 279 of only 500 copies signed by Durrell.

Set in the Mediterranean and Aegean islands where Durrell had worked for the British Foreign Office, his acclaimed tetralogy explores love in Alexandrian society. The first three books, set in Alexandria during the period just before the Second World War, explore the same series of events from different points of view; the last book, Clea, moves forward in time. "'The central topic… is an investigation of modern love,' Durrell proclaimed, while a subsidiary theme is the nature of fiction itself" (Parker & Kermode, 370). "We cannot see the whole of any given character or event in one novel alone. Each novel is meaningless on its own" (Burgess, 99 Novels, 67). In Durrell's preface to this important one-volume collection of all four novels, he writes: "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."

Scarce slipcase with light rubbing. A fine signed copy.