Justine

novel by Durrell

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

July 20, 2026

Quick Summary

Justine is the first novel in Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet. Set in Alexandria during the 1940s, the tetralogy consists of Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958), and Clea (1960).

In Justine, the narrator, L.G. Darley, reflects on his past affair with Justine Hosnani. The novel explores themes of love, memory, and the subjective nature of truth, as Darley attempts to understand the events and relationships that shaped his experiences in Alexandria. The subsequent novels in the series re-examine these events from different perspectives, highlighting the relativity of truth and the multifaceted nature of reality.12

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

2 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

The Alexandria Quartet
…sensuous tetralogy, which consists of Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958), and Clea (1960), is set in Alexandria, Egypt, during the 1940s. Three of the books are written in the first person, Mountolive in the third. The first three volumes describe, from different viewpoints, a series of events in Alexandria…
Read More
…sensuous tetralogy, which consists of Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958), and Clea (1960), is set in Alexandria, Egypt, during the 1940s. Three of the books are written in the first person, Mountolive in the third. The first three volumes describe, from different viewpoints, a series of events in Alexandria…
Read More