Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria – in pictures

Lawrence Durrell claimed that in the Alexandria Quartet 'only the city is real'. Yet after the Suez crisis, and under Nasser's nationalist rule, the cosmopolitan city he described had vanished. By the time Durrell was writing in the late 1950s, the pre-war Alexandria he describes was lost, reduced to a memory – as fictional as everything else in the books. But Durrell's Alexandria remains a substantial, seductive presence, with a flavour and character all of its own. Sam Jordison takes us through images which show the inspiration for his vivid descriptions

  • The view across the Eastern Harbour towards Fort Qayt Bey (on the site of the ancient Pharos) from the Athineos cafe

    'But here, at least, in Alexandria, the sea-breaths save us from the tideless weight of summer nothingness, creeping over the bar among the warships, to flutter the striped awnings of the cafes upon the Grande Corniche' ... Durrell's Alexandria has vanished now, if it ever existed, but six decades after the publication of the Alexandria Quartet, traces of it still remain
    Alexandria City of Memory: Eastern Harbour towards Fort Qayt Bey

  • The poet Cavafy, c1900

    Cavafy is quoted extensively throughout The Alexandria Quartet and presides over the whole series as a genius loci. The narrator of Balthazar names him alongside Antony and Cleopatra when recalling the city's leading lights
    Alexandria City of Memory: The poet Cavafy

  • Rue Lepsius in the 1980s

    The flat with the balcony and washing once belonged to the poet Cavafy. At the time this picture was taken, it was a cheap pension
    Alexandria City of Memory: Rue Lepsius in the 1980s

  • Cavafy's flat

    By the time this picture was taken in the early 2000s, the Cavafy museum had opened in his flat
    Alexandria City of Memory: Cavafy's flat at 10 Rue Lepsius

  • Burg el Arab in the late 1930s

    In the first volume of the Alexandria Quartet, Nessim builds a summer palace in Burg el Arab for his wife, Justine
    Alexandria City of Memory: Burg el Arab in the late 1930s

  • Durrell's second wife Eve Cohen

    Eve is widely thought to have been one of the main inspirations for Justine, and the first novel in the Alexandria Quartet is dedicated to her
    Alexandria City of Memory: Durrell's second wife Eve Cohen

  • The entrance to Ambron villa, where Durrell lived during the second world war
    Alexandria City of Memory: The entrance to Ambron villa

  • Durrell's tower at the Ambron villa

    It was here that Durrell wrote Prospero's Cell, his 'guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corcyra', and began the book that would become The Alexandria Quartet
    Alexandria City of Memory: Durrell's tower at the Ambron villa

  • Josa and Oswald Finney's ballroom

    The scene of fabulous parties and costume balls – and murder and conspiracy – in the Alexandria Quartet
    Alexandria City of Memory: Josa and Oswald Finney's ballroom

  • Durrell with his daughter, Penelope, in Alexandria

    Durrell fled to Alexandria with Penelope and his wife, Nancy, after escaping the Nazi occupation of Greece during the second world war
    Alexandria City of Memory: Lawrence Durrell arrives in Alexandria

  • Lawrence Durrell with his first wife Nancy Myers and baby Penelope

    Nancy left Durrell in Alexandria, during the second world war
    Alexandria City of Memory: Lawrence Durrell with his first wife Nancy Myers and baby Penelope

  • Lawrence Durrell on a duck shoot on Lake Mareotis

    This experience was recreated in the dramatic final pages of Justine
    Alexandria City of Memory: Lawrence Durrell on a duck shoot
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