Prospero's Cell - Hardcover

Durrell, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0753152150 ISBN 13: 9780753152157

Publisher: Isis Large Print, 2001

Synopsis

A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corcyra. "A keen eye for character and a scholar's reverence for antiquity." DAILY TELEGRAPH For several years, Lawrence Durrell made his home on the Greek island of Corfu. Wanting to record the Ionian magic of the place before it was quashed by the threat from Hitler's armies, he penned his reflections in the form of PROSPERO'S CELL, thought by many to be his finest book. With remarkable style, Durrell evokes an atmosphere of happiness and radiance describing "not so much a landscape as a climate, the waterless islands, the grey windmills, the olive trees and statues". It is a book of poetic evocation as well as a comprehensive guide to the island, highly revered by critics and a delight to read.

About this title

About the Author

Lawrence Durrell was born in 1912 in India. He attended the Jesuit College at Darjeeling and St Edmund's School, Canterbury. His first literary work, The Black Book, appeared in Paris in 1938. His first collection of poems, A Private Country, was published in 1943, followed by the three Island books: Prospero's Cell, Reflections on a Marine Venus, about Rhodes, and Bitter Lemons, his account of life in Cyprus. Durrell's wartime sojourn in Egypt led to his masterpiece, The Alexandria Quartet, which he completed in southern France where he settled permanently in 1957. Between the Quartet and The Avignon Quintet he wrote the two-decker Tunc and Nunquam. His oeuvre includes plays, a book of criticism, translations, travel writing, and humorous stories about the diplomatic corps. Caesar's Vast Ghost, his reflections on the history and culture of Provence, including a late flowering of poems, appeared a few days before his death in Sommieres in 1990.

Edition details

• Publisher: Isis Large Print
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0753152150
• ISBN 13: 9780753152157
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224