ALEXANDRIA
A History and a Guide

E. M. FORSTER

MICHAEL HAAG: LONDON
1982

In the autumn of 1915, in a slightly heroic mood, E.M. Forster arrived in Alexandria, full of lofty ideals as a volunteer for the Red Cross. Yet most of his time was spent exploring the magic, antiquity and complexity of the place in order to cope with living in what he saw as a funk-hole. With a novelist's pen, he brings to life the fabled, romantic city of Alexander the Great, capital of Graeco-Roman Egypt, beacon of light and culture symbolised by the Pharos, where the doomed love affair of Antony and Cleopatra was played out and the greatest library the world has ever known was built. Threading 3,000 years of history with vibrant strands of literature and punctuating the narrative with his own experiences, Forster immortalised Alexandria, painting an incomparable portrait of the great city and, inadvertently, himself.

Published in Egypt in 1922 and 1938 and in the United States in 1961 (with a new introduction by the author), Alexandria has never been published in Britain or elsewhere.

In this annotated edition, with a specially-commissioned introduction by Lawrence Durrell who recounts his recent return to the city, that literature and its authors join the pageant while the reality of Alexandria today is also examined.

20 x 13 cm. xxvi + 279 pp.

Very good condition. Dust jacket faded on the spine. Top corner of the boards and ends of the spine slightly bumped. Contents clean and tidy.