British · b. 1925
OBE, Fellow of the Institute of Biology
British naturalist, zookeeper, and author whose comic memoirs of his family's life on Corfu in the 1930s remain among the most beloved nature and travel books in English.
Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, India in 1925 and moved with his family to the Greek island of Corfu as a child in 1935 — the experience that inspired the Corfu trilogy beginning with My Family and Other Animals (1956). From childhood he was obsessed with wildlife, and he later worked as a student keeper at Whipsnade Zoo before leading collecting expeditions to Cameroon, British Guiana, Argentina, and elsewhere.
In 1959 he founded the Jersey Zoo (now Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust) on the island of Jersey, dedicated to the captive breeding and conservation of endangered species. This work, and the ethical thinking behind it, was documented in his later books.
His brother was the novelist Lawrence Durrell, and My Family and Other Animals affectionately lampoons the Durrell family’s eccentricities alongside its celebration of Corfu’s wildlife. Gerald Durrell died in 1995. The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust continues his work in Jersey.
by Gerald Durrell
Young Gerald Durrell's account of five years living on Corfu with his eccentric family in the 1930s — a childhood paradise of wildlife, sunshine, and complete freedom to roam.
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by Gerald Durrell
The second volume of Gerald Durrell's Corfu trilogy continues the story of the Durrell family's years on the Greek island. With the same warmth and comic genius as the first, it introduces more extraordinary animals and eccentric characters.
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by Gerald Durrell
The third and final volume of Gerald Durrell's Corfu trilogy, completing the story of the family's years on the Greek island before the outbreak of World War II drove them back to England.
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by Gerald Durrell
Gerald Durrell's account of his third Cameroon expedition, during which he collected animals specifically to found his own zoo on the island of Jersey — the origin of what became the Jersey Zoo and Wildlife Preservation Trust.
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by Gerald Durrell
Gerald Durrell's first book, an account of his animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons in 1947-48. The book that launched his career and established his voice as one of the finest natural history writers in English.
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by Gerald Durrell
Gerald Durrell's account of his second animal-collecting expedition to the British Cameroons in 1949, and his extraordinary friendship with the Fon of Bafut — a remarkable ruler with a taste for whisky and dancing.
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All Gerald Durrell books in order — from The Overloaded Ark to the Corfu trilogy. The complete guide to his natural history memoirs and wildlife conservation writing.
guide
New to Gerald Durrell? My Family and Other Animals is the perfect entry point — but this guide explains what to expect and which book suits different types of reader.
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