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has our Philhellenism undergone a radical change for the better but…the modern Greek has become more than worthy of the admiration that was too often in the past reserved for his ancestors” (this volume 117). The paternalism has not yet vanished, but the recognition of new vitality and the occluding restrictions of an imperialist vantage point are major shifts for this period. Such reconsiderations of Greece as home appear across Durrell’s other works in this volume, whether it is his desire to dote on Corfu or his hesitations over Cyprus, an island wounded deeply by imperialism, and which in turn wounded Durrell deeply. Again, the position as a subject of empire shapes the vision Durrell can conjure, but it is by this time most assuredly a vision of contemporary rather than ancient Greece, and that shift is still worth noting, even as we question the difficulties of Durrell’s conflicted politics.
    In only these three approaches—Durrell’s politics, his position as a Late Modernist, and the often-censored poignancy of his writings of place—we find that attention to Durrell’s short prose creates a greatly transformed understanding of Durrell as an author and, as a consequence, a radically new way of re-reading his major works. If, in reading Durrell’s charming works collected here, the reader develops a startlingly new or at the least refreshed way of engaging with the major novel sequences or with Durrell’s overlooked poetry, then the purpose of this collection will be amply served.
    THIS EDITION
    This collection was first envisioned by Peter Baldwin as a volume to be produced by Delos Press, which has specialized in fine editions. At his invitation, Richard Pine and I prepared a series of very brief comments on each piece to provide a précis for the unfamiliar reader or to point out one or two of the potentially confusing references to which Durrell is prone. The contents of this original volume, and the nature of its editorial comments, were significantly different from those brought together here. Yet this was the genesis of the project, and it remains a significant influence. This project was unfortunately abandoned due to the demands of the financial crisis of 2008, which has impacted small press endeavours in a number of ways worldwide. While a letterpress edition with marbled wrappers has advantages, and I greatly value the few beautiful Delos editions my shelves afford, the wider availability of this edition and its scholarly nature has led to extensive revisions.
    This present volume developed, phoenix-like, from this earlier vision, albeit without any dramatic flames or burning of manuscripts. I have both expanded and contracted the contents, trimming some initially intended works while integrating others that had not been previously considered, and stitching still others together for a future volume on Durrell’s creative process. This also led to a new sequence and series of divisions between the various works. Durrell’s fascinating discussions of the relations between the visual arts and writing must remain for another project, as does much of his literary criticism and short creative prose. However, the most significant transformation has been to the nature of the volume and its aims, specifically the audience and purpose it envisions. It has shifted from a fine press printing with only very brief and unobtrusive contextual materials to a full critical edition with a scholarly apparatus, detailed annotations, and bibliography. This new vision necessitated changes not only to the selected works, such that those of a more scholarly orientation were retained to a higher degree than others, but also to the order and structure of the work.
    In general, I have left Durrell’s idiosyncratic grammar untouched, although spellings have been standardized. Where more than one edition of a work previously exists, changes to paragraph breaks are common. This is