Balthazar. A Novel.

First edition. 8vo. 250pp. Publisher's blue cloth, blocked in red and lettered in gilt to spine. Grey, illustrated dustwrapper (priced 16s net to front flap).

Top-edge dust-soiled, off-setting to endpapers, covers and prelims. partially water-damaged. Dustwrapper sunned to edges and spine, slight loss to tips and backstrip edges, else Very Good.

The second volume in the The Alexandria Quartet sequence, being a chronicle of British expats in pre-World War II Egypt. A Burgess 99 title. No. 70 on The Modern Library's list of The 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century. In a Prefatory Note Durrell proffers that the tetralogy was intended as 'a continuum', with the first three books relating the same sequence of events from multiple points of view, whilst the fourth and final volume tracks change over time.

"Durrell... utilizes Einstein's theory of relativity, recounting the same events from multiple viewpoints within the first three volumes, then advancing the characters and situations through the fourth dimension, time, in the fourth and final volume." –Literary Encyclopedia

[Thomas & Brigham A29]