The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea. (Limited Edition, Signed by Author)

Signed Edition Limited to Five Hundred Copies of Which This is copy Number 25

 First combined edition of Durrell's famous tetralogy, consisting of JUSTINE (1957), BALTHAZAR (1958), MOUNTOLIVE (1958) and CLEA (1960). Frst impression, number 252 of 500 copies signed by the author.

The individual volumes were first published between 1957 and 1960. For this collected edition the author took the opportunity "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..."

Lawrence Durrell's masterpiece The Alexandria Quartet are four novels set in Alexandria, Egypt during the 1940s. The first of his four novels Justine "demands comparison with the best books of our century." Balthazar continues Durrell s epic series with "a spontaneous, resourceful new beauty" and, in the third novel Mountolive, Durrell again creates a "work of splendid craft and troubling veracity." The tetralogy s final novel Clea completes Durrell s stated design of modelling "the series on the relativity proposition in physics" altogether achieving "a spontaneous, resourceful new beauty" (New York Times). Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century.

• Hard cover: Very Good to Fine Condition. Original orange cloth, gilt titling on spine, hand-print design to front board in black, yellow endpapers, top edge gilt.
• Minimal wear along edges of boards. Spine faded.
• Foxing on the first 3 pages and the very last page.
• Text block is tight and intact. The contents are clean and bright. Lightly aged.
• Published by Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1962.
• No Dust Jacket. With original acetate dust jacket.
• Binding Condition:
• Overall Condition: Very Good to Fine.
• Size: Octavo (8vo), 223 mm X 151 mm X 44 mm.
• 884 pages.