Gerald Durrell Books in Order: Complete Reading Guide

Gerald Durrell wrote over thirty books across forty years — memoirs of childhood in Corfu, accounts of animal-collecting expeditions to Africa and South America, and passionate arguments for wildlife conservation. All of them are driven by the same qualities: an extraordinary eye for animal behaviour, a gift for comedy, and a genuine reverence for the natural world.

The heart of his work is the Corfu trilogy — My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts, and Relatives, and The Garden of the Gods — three volumes that together create one of the most celebrated portraits of a childhood in English literature. Around it are the Africa expedition books, the South American expeditions, and a series of later conservation-focused works.

Start with My Family and Other Animals — it is one of the funniest and most beloved memoirs in the English language, and the perfect introduction to Durrell’s world.

The Corfu Trilogy (read in order)

The Africa Expedition Books

The Corfu Trilogy in Detail

1. My Family and Other Animals ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Start here

The ten-year-old Gerald Durrell arrives on Corfu with his eccentric family — his long-suffering mother, his novelist brother Larry, the gun-obsessed Leslie, and the perpetually dieting Margo — and proceeds to spend the next three years collecting every creature he can find on the sun-drenched island. One of the funniest and most beloved memoirs ever written, and the best introduction to Durrell’s world. Read the full review →

2. Birds, Beasts, and Relatives ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The second volume continues the Corfu story with a new cast of animals and the same comic genius. A giant tortoise, an imperious pelican, and a colony of scorpions join the household as the family’s capacity for chaos reaches new heights. Read the full review →

3. The Garden of the Gods ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The final volume, written with more retrospective feeling than its predecessors. The paradise of pre-war Corfu is evoked with the knowledge that it cannot last, and Durrell gives it the permanence that only writing can provide. His most elegiac and perhaps most beautiful book. Read the full review →

The Africa Expeditions

The Overloaded Ark ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Durrell’s first book, based on his 1947-48 animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. The qualities that would make him famous — the eye for animal behaviour, the gift for comedy, the passion for conservation — are fully formed from the first page. Read the full review →

The Bafut Beagles ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The second Cameroon expedition, distinguished by its portrait of the extraordinary Fon of Bafut — hereditary ruler, lover of whisky, and one of the finest characters in 20th-century travel writing. Read the full review →

A Zoo in My Luggage ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The third Cameroon expedition, made specifically to collect animals for Durrell’s own zoo. The book that explains why the Jersey Zoo exists — and where Durrell’s conservation argument was first publicly made. Read the full review →

Reading order recommendation

For new readers: Start with My Family and Other Animals, then complete the Corfu trilogy before reading the Africa books.

For readers interested in conservation: A Zoo in My Luggage contains Durrell’s clearest statement of his conservation philosophy.

For the full Corfu experience: Read the trilogy in order — My Family and Other Animals → Birds, Beasts, and Relatives → The Garden of the Gods.

Also see

• Where to Start with Gerald Durrell

For the full Gerald Durrell bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the Gerald Durrell author page on Editors Reads.

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