Nicholas Boulton

"Diana's Boys revealed the powerful bond between the teenaged princes, and how it strengthened even more in the wake of their mother's tragic death. Now, twenty years later, Queen Elizabeth II is in her mid-nineties, Prince Charles is in his seventies, and all eyes are turned increasingly toward William and Harry again. Christopher Andersen picks up where he left off, covering everything that has happened to the brothers as they have grown up, gotten...

The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) is a compelling novel of passion and daring, of prisons and heroic escape, of political chicanery and sublime personal courage. Set at the beginning of the nineteenth century, amidst the golden landscapes of northern Italy, it traces the joyous but ill-starred amorous exploits of a handsome young aristocrat called Fabrice del Dongo, and of his incomparable aunt Gina, her suitor Prime Minister Mosca, and Clelia, a heroine...

The final installment of the Alexandria Quartet. Years after his liaisons with Justine and Melissa, Darley becomes immersed in a relationship with Clea, a bisexual artist. The ensuing chain of events transforms not only the lovers, but the dead as well, and leads to the series' brilliant and unexpected resolution.   Praised by Life as among the 'most discussed and widely admired serious fiction of our time,' Clea carries on Durrell's assured and...

The deeply affecting second novel of the Alexandria Quartet, which boldly questions perception and the nature of contemporary love. In Alexandria, Egypt, in the years before World War II, Durrell's narrator, Darley, seeks to fully understand his sexual obsession with two women: the infamous Justine, and Melissa, a dancer. In Darley's conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, it soon becomes clear that Darley's fixation is more complex and...

Although Longus's pastoral has attracted disapproval too - Mrs. Browning called it an 'obscene text' - it has proved an enduringly fertile source for artists from Henry Fielding to Corot and Ravel and is recognizably the masterpiece among early Greek novels. It shares with them the stock in trade of pirates, dreams and supernatural aids, but Longus's artistry adds other dimensions, transforming it into a virtuoso love story, rich in insights, humorous...