Lawrence Durrell composed Propero's Cell as if it were a journal or diary of a year and a half on the island of Corfu, and he prefaced his statement of poetic intent by a casual comment, "I am making no attempt to control all this material." Of course he really is, for this is a carefully plotted and thought-out reminiscence that covers a period from early spring to harvest time a year later (from April 1937 to September 1938, with an added postscript in 1941) -- the turning of the seasons of one special time.