Pharos and Pharillon

Pharos and Pharillon is one of E. M. Forster's most unusual works, and also one of his most personal. It takes the form of a series of impressionistic "sketches" of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Beginning with brief, deftly drawn narratives of Alexandria's ancient origins and its central role in the development of Christianity, it then proceeds to give a vivid account of Forster's own experience of the city during the First World War.

Imaginative, erudite, and powerfully evocative, Pharos and Pharillon is a brilliant work of travel writing by one of the last century's great observers of human affairs.