FORSTER, E. M.

£750 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Alexandria: A History and a Guide. First edition, first impression. Copies of this edition are scarce, for "a very large proportion" of the stock was destroyed by fire in the publisher's warehouse during the Blitz (Kirkpatrick, p. 39). As Forster wrote in a letter in 1956, "I am afraid both editions of my Alexandrias are extinct".Lawrence Durrell, author of the Alexandria Quartet, wrote that in this work "the whole historical perspective of the city, in all its variety, has been captured and fixed in a series of short essays brightly starred with all the virtues of this fine artist. With a marvelous economy he brings the place to life - and gives life to the great personages who inhabited it: philosophers, poets, mathematicians, courtesans. Each portrait is a cameo. And the book despite its strictly utilitarian form and severely practical arrangement of matter is the work of a master essayist. It is in fact vintage Forster."

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