My Family and Other Animals

The inspiration behind ITV's hit family drama, The Durrells.My Family and Other Animals is Gerald Durrell's hilarious account of five years in his childhood spent living with his family on the island of Corfu. With snakes, scorpions, toads, owls and geckos competing for space with one bookworm brother and another who's gun-mad, as well as an obsessive sister, young Gerald has an awful lot of natural history to observe. This richly detailed, informative and riotously funny memoir of eccentric family life is a twentieth-century classic.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an afterword by Peter Olney, former Keeper of Birds at the London Zoo, and a distinguished ornithologist who was awarded the Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal in 2003.

I do assure you, the world needs Durrell., The enduring joy of the book resides in reading about a bohemian family when you have never been part of one yourself . . . One night I laughed so hard I slipped out of bed, whacking my head on the nightstand, He [Durrell] produced a literary masterpiece that remains the finest evocation of paradise ever written. He built a paradise based on his own beliefs of what a zoo should be. And after his death in 1995, he left behind an organisation that works to restore a touch of paradise to humanity and to everything else that lives.

Gerald Durrell was a naturalist, author, media personality, conservationist and founder of both the internationally renowned Jersey Zoo and what is now known as the Durrell Wildlife Preservation Trust. A passionate and inspiring advocate of the need for the conservation of animals and plants and their habitats, he was also a brilliant storyteller. His early family life forms the basis for the ITV drama, The Durrells.Though he had almost no formal education he became a prolific writer, publishing numerous articles and thirty-seven books including Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods, before his death in 1995, aged seventy.