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Myself and Other Animals is a new book mosaicked from unpublished autobiographies, uncollected pieces and previously published extracts from Durrell’s work and archives. The result is an extraordinary journey through Durrell’s life in his own words, edited and introduced by his widow, Lee Durrell.

Drawing on a memoir that Durrell started writing before he became too ill to continue it and an unfinished book from a trip to Australia in 1969 to the Great Barrier Reef, Northern Territory and Queensland, here is the unvarnished story of Durrell’s life, from touching family tributes to golden bats and pink pigeons.

Moving from India to England and then to the always sun-lit Corfu, told with dry wit and insight into our fellow animals, here is the vivid finale of one of Britain’s most beloved conservationists and prose stylists.

Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, India, in 1925. He returned to England in 1928 before settling on the island of Corfu with his family. In 1945, he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper, and in 1947, he led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. He later undertook numerous further expeditions, visiting Paraguay, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Mauritius, Assam and Madagascar. His first television programme, Two in the Bush, which documented his travels to New Zealand, Australia and Malaya, was made in 1962; he went on to make seventy programmes about his trips around the world. In 1959, he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, and in 1964, he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. He was awarded the OBE in 1982.

Encouraged to write about his life's work by his brother, Durrell published his first book, The Overloaded Ark, in 1953. It soon became a bestseller, and he went on to write thirty-six other titles, including My Family and Other Animals, The Bafut Beagles, Encounters with Animals, The Drunken Forest, A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land, Menagerie Manor, The Amateur Naturalist and The Aye-Aye and I. Gerald Durrell died in 1995.

Lee Durrell MBE is available for publicity and events to celebrate the centenary of Gerald Durrell throughout 2025.

For media and publicity enquiries, please contact Marie-Louise Patton MLPatton@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk