Lawrence Durrell’s The Avignon Quintet is a strange, ornate, self-folding sequence of five connected novels: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, and Quinx.

Written after The Alexandria Quartet, the quintet moves Durrell’s fictional universe from Alexandria to Avignon, opening into a world of châteaux, wartime Europe, Egypt, Gnostic sects, Templar legends, psychoanalysis, erotic entanglement, doubles, manuscripts, ghosts, and narrative rooms that do not stay where they are put.

This is late Durrell in full performance: sensuous, excessive, clever, mystic, theatrical, sometimes maddening, often brilliant. Best for readers who like modernist afterlives, European literary weirdness, metaphysical conspiracy, and novels where love affairs, religious heresies, war memory, and literary form all keep sliding into one another like someone has spilled wine on the floor plan of civilisation.

Complete five-volume Avignon Quintet bundle. Includes Faber hardbacks of Monsieur, Livia, Constance, and Sebastian, plus Viking hardback of Quinx. First editions where noted from photos; Sebastian is ex-library with stamps, labels, and borrowing sheet. Overall good to very good vintage condition, with dust jackets, light shelf wear, mild toning/spotting, and some edge/corner wear.