Durrell, Lawrence ___ 1912-1990 ___ British (born in India) ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Lawrence Durrell was born in Darjeeling, India, the son of Lawrence Samuel Durrell, a British civil engineer, and Louisa, an Irish protestant, both of whom had been brought up in India. In 1923, he was sent to be educated in England, and attended various schools without much success. In the 1930s, he moved to Paris where he met Henry Miller and Anäis Nin, among others, who encouraged his writing. In subsequent years, he spent some time with his mother on Corfu, published his first novel 'The Black Book', and edited a literary magazine. In the war, Durrell served as press attache to the British embassies in Cairo and Alexandria, and, after the war, held various diplomatic and teaching posts mostly in Greece, but also in Belgrade and Buenos Aires. From 1953, he lived in Cyprus, working again, for a while, for the British Government during the Cypriot revolution. He is most famous for the 'Alexandria Quartet', four novels written in the 1950s. During the latter part of his life, Durrell lived in the South of France, which is the setting for his most ambitious work, 'The Avignon Quintet'. Apart from novels, Durrell also wrote several celebrated books about the Greek Islands (one of which - Prospero's Cell - is a diary) and poetry. Durrell married four times. He had two daughters each with his first two wives, Nancy Meyers and Yvette Cohen. His second daughter, Sappho, committed suicide in 1985, leaving behind unsubstantiated accusations about her father.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - A book out of these scraps

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1937-1938 ___ literary travel Greece

WEB TEXT LINKS
a few pages
some quotes

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
British Library, TheLawrence Durrell Collection - possibly
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corcyra
 

May 2005, June 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.