Gerald Durrell - Books

Books

Durrell's books, both fiction and non-fiction, have a wry, loose style that poked fun at himself as well as those around him. Perhaps his best-known work is My Family and Other Animals (1956), which tells of his idyllic, if oddball, childhood on Corfu. Later made into a TV series, it is delightfully deprecating about the whole family, especially elder brother Lawrence, who became a famous novelist. Despite Durrell's jokes at the expense of "brother Larry," the two were close friends all their lives.

Gerald Durrell always insisted that he wrote for royalties to help the cause of environmental stewardship, not out of an inherent love for writing. Gerald Durrell describes himself as a writer in comparison to his brother Lawrence:

The subtle difference between us is that he loves writing and I don't. To me it's simply a way to make money which enables me to do my animal work, nothing more.

However, he shows a surprising diversity and dexterity in a wide variety of writing, including:

• autobiographical accounts: Most of his works are of such kind — characterized by a love for nature and animals, dry wit, crisp descriptions and humorous analogies of human beings with animals and vice versa. The most famous of these is the Corfu trilogy — My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, and The Garden of the Gods.
• short stories: often bordering on the Roald Dahl-esque, like "Michelin Man" in Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium. The latter also has an acclaimed Gothic horror story titled "The Entrance". Marrying Off Mother and Other Stories also has a few short stories.
• novels: Durrell's only two novels for adults are Rosy is My Relative, a story about a bequeathed elephant which Durrell claimed is based on real life events, and The Mockery Bird, the fable based loosely on the story of Mauritius and the Dodo.
• technical essays: The Stationary Ark is a collection of technical essays on zoo-keeping and conservation.
• guides: The Amateur Naturalist is the definitive guide for a budding naturalist over the last 20 years.
• stories for young adults: The Donkey Rustlers is an Enid Blyton-ish feel good novel, while The Talking Parcel is a a tale of children at large in a land of mythological creatures.
• natural history books for children: The New Noah is a collection of encounters with animals from Durrell's previous expeditions, written with children in mind.
• stories for children: Keeper, Toby the Tortoise, The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure, and The Fantastic Flying Journey are lavishly illustrated stories for young children.
• board and picture books: the board book series Puppy Stories are for infants, and the picture book Island Zoo is for young children about the first animals in Jersey Zoo.

Durrell was also a regular contributor to magazines on both sides of the Atlantic like Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and the Sunday Times Supplement. He was also a regular book reviewer for the New York Times. A number of excerpts and stories from his books were used by Octopus Books and Reader's Digest Publishing, including in the Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

Durrell's works have been translated into 31 languages, and made into TV serials, and feature films. He has a large followings in Northern and Eastern Europe, Russia, Israel and in various Commonwealth countries, including India.

In December 2011, ten of Durrell's catalogue were reissued as ebooks with five more to follow in 2012.

The British Library houses a collection of Durrell's books, presented by him to Alan G. Thomas, as part of the Lawrence Durrell Collection.