The scene for the story Durrell's narrator tells is the dusty, modern Alexandria of the 1930s, "an exotic city of constant interactions between cultures and religions", and with a cultural milieu that mixes exceptional sophistication with equally remarkable sordidness. From a remote Greek island, he retells his time in Alexandria and his tragic romance with Justine – a beautiful, mysterious Jewish woman who was born poor and is now married to a wealthy Egyptian Copt, Nessim. He is a struggling writer and schoolmaster, with a background and a number of personal experiences similar autobiographically to those of the author himself. Justine is narrated by an impoverished Irishman, not named in this novel, but who is referred to as "Darley" in the later novels of the quartet. Since first becoming available to the public and reviewers in 1957, Justine has inspired what has been called "an almost religious devotion among readers and critics alike." It was adapted into the film of the same name in 1969. The city itself is described by Durrell as becoming as much of a complex character as the human protagonists of the novels. The quartet is set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in the 1930s and 1940s. The tetralogy consists of four interlocking novels, each of which recounts various aspects of a complex story of passion and deception from differing points of view. Justine, published in 1957, is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's literary tetralogy, The Alexandria Quartet.
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