Discover the Best Books Written by Gerald Durrell

Gerald Malcolm Durrell, OBE, was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals (1956). 

Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series (My Family and Other Animals, 1987, and The Durrells, 2016–2019) and one television film (My Family and Other Animals, 2005). He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell.

Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, British India, on 7 January 1925. He was the fifth and youngest child (an elder sister having died in infancy) of Louisa Florence Dixie and Lawrence Samuel Durrell, both of whom were born in India of English and Irish descent. Durrell's father was a British engineer and, as was commonplace for a family of their status, the infant Durrell spent most of his time in the company of an ayah (nursemaid). Durrell reportedly recalled his first visit to a zoo in India and attributed his lifelong love of animals to that encounter.

The family moved to Britain shortly before the death of his father in 1928 and settled in the Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace, area of South London. Durrell was enrolled in Wickwood School but frequently stayed at home, feigning illness. Louisa moved to the Greek island of Corfu in 1935 with Leslie, Margaret, and Gerald, joining her eldest son Lawrence who had arrived there with his wife Nancy about a week earlier. It was on Corfu that Durrell began to collect and keep the local fauna as pets.

The family lived on Corfu until 1939, and this interval became the basis of Durrell's books My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts, and Relatives; and The Garden of the Gods, plus a few short stories such as "My Donkey Sally." The Corfu years also set the background for two TV series and one telefilm. Durrell was home-schooled during this time by various private tutors, mostly friends of his brother Lawrence.

Theodore Stephanides was a Greek-British doctor, scientist, poet, translator, and friend of George Wilkinson, one of Durrell's tutors. He became Durrell's greatest friend and mentor, his ideas leaving a lasting impression on the young naturalist. Together, they examined Corfu's fauna, which Durrell housed in a variety of items, including test tubes and bathtubs. 

Stephanides' daughter Alexia Mercouri (1927–2018), accompanied the two on their field trips. She stated that both families had hoped that she and Durrell would marry one day, but the outbreak of war in 1939 disrupted any such prospect. Other influences on Durrell during his formative years were the works of naturalists Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Jean-Henri Fabre, and Gilbert White.