Lawrence Durrell
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Lawrence Durrell (February 27, 1912 – November 7,1990) was a British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was born in India and, at the age of eleven, was sent to attend school in England – a country in which he was never happy and which he left as soon as possible.
His first novel, Pied Piper of Lovers, was published in 1935. In that year Durrell, his wife, siblings and mother moved to the Greek island of Corfu where they lived until 1941, when they had to leave the island due to WWII. Lawrence Durrell separated from his wife in 1942, and became peripatetic, living for some time in Egypt, Rhodes, Argentina, and Greece, and finally settling in the south of France. He was married four times in all.
In August of 1937 he and his wife Nancy arrived at the Villa Seurat in Paris, on a sort of pilgrimage to meet an idol of his, Henry Miller (of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn fame.) 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 apocolyptic" as "Tropic." Together with Anais Nin and Alfred Perles, Miller and Durrell "began a collaboration aimed at founding their own literary movement. Their projects included 'The Booster,' a country club house organ the Villa Seurat group appropriated for their own artistic...ends." (Dearborn, Mary V., The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller. pp. 192 and picture insert captions.)
His most famous work was The Alexandria Quartet, a tetralogy. His brother, Gerald Durrell, was a major British naturalist and wildlife conservationist.
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Major Works
Novels
- Pied Piper of Lovers 1935
- Panic Spring (pseudonym: Charles Norden) 1937
- The Black Book 1938
- The Dark Labyrinth (Cefalu) 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 1974, Livia 1978, Constance 1982, Sebastian 1983, Quinx 1985)
Travel
- Prospero's Cell 1945
- Reflections on a Marine Venus 1953
- Bitter Lemons 1957
- Blue Thirst 1975
- Sicilian Carousel 1977
- The Greek Islands 1978
- Caesar's Vast Ghost 1990
Poetry
- Selected Poems: 1953-63 Edited by Alan Ross 1964
- Collected Poems: 1931 - 1974 Edited by James A. Brigham 1980
Drama
- Sappho 1950
- An Irish Faustus 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 Edited by Alan G. Thomas 1969
- Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington-Lawrence Durrell Correspondence Edited by Ian S. MacNiven and Harry T. Moore 1981
- A Smile in the Mind's Eye 1982
- The Durrell-Miller Letters: 1935-80 Edited by Ian S. MacNiven 1988
External link
- The International Lawrence Durrell Society (http://www.lawrencedurrell.org/)