A prolific British author, Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990) wrote several large-scale, multi-volume series of novels as well as poetry, plays, short stories, and travel books. People and places of the Mediterranean were a central theme of his work.

Lawrence Durrell was born on February 27, 1912, in Darjeeling, India, at the foothills of the Himalayas. His parents were Irish Protestants engaged in colonial service. After attending the College of St. Joseph in Darjeeling, the 11-year-old Durrell, like many Anglo-Indian children, was sent to England to complete his education. He went to St. Edmund's School, Canterbury, and, failing to gain entrance to Cambridge, took up a bohemian existence and supported himself by working as a jazz pianist in London night clubs and taking on a variety of odd jobs. He also began to work seriously on his poetry and fiction.

Oppressed by the hardship of life in a grimy quarter of London...