Lawrence Durrell had two novels to his credit ('Pied Piper of Lovers' and 'Panic Spring') when T.S. Eliot, Durrell's editor at Faber & Faber, said that 'The Black Book' was 'the first piece of work by a new English writer to give me any hope for the future of prose fiction'. In a complex tale set in a seedy London hotel, Durrell spun a narrative which was to foreshadow his best-known work of two decades later, the Alexandria Quartet in its dealings with time, characterisation, and narrative. Memorable characters and rich prose swirl around the central figure of Lawrence Lucifer. Considered unpublishable in 1937, it did not find its way into print in Britain until 1961. Well worth the time if you find a copy.