"THE WINE HAD DONE ITS WORK, THE MUSIC EXERCISED ITS CHARM, THE LEAFY SHADOW AND WHITE LIGHT HAD EXPRESSED ALL THE AMPLE BEAUTY OF A LATE SPRING…"

DURRELL, Lawrence. The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur; Livia; Constance; Sebastian; Quinx. London: Faber and Faber, (1974-85). Five volumes. Octavo, original cloths, original dust jackets. $1500.

First editions of Durrell's Avignon quintet, each volume signed by him.

"Durrell's style is ornate, lyrical, and sensual" (Drabble, 302). "The five linked novels cover the period from just before World War II to just after it. They move from France to Egypt to England to Germany to Switzerland and include a vast and varied cast of characters… Over and over again, patterns dissolve and systems fail… As the narrator says toward the end, 'There is no meaning and we falsify the truth about reality in adding one. The universe is playing, the universe is only improvising!' Another, more hilarious work of teleological distress, Rabelais's 'Gargantua and Pantagruel,' ends with a similar anticlimax, when the long-sought-after oracle of the holy bottle speaks the single nonsense syllable 'trinc.''Although the truth never appears, the search is nonetheless worth the effort. The sensual beauties of Mr. Durrell's text suggest a further similarity with Rabelais. Here, as in his famous 'Alexandria Quartet,' Mr. Durrell writes descriptions that can take one's breath away. Avignon, ancient city of kings and popes, comes gloriously alive. The physical pleasures are the only ones that can be counted on in this world of teleological frustration" (New York Times).

Fine condition.