A Zoo in My Luggage

Durrell, Gerald

ISBN 10: 0140020845 / ISBN 13: 9780140020847

Published by Penguin Publishing Group, 1976

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # GRP15451575

Synopsis:

The true and hilarious story of how Gerald Durrell and his wife set up their own zoo. Journeying to the Cameroons, he and his wife, helped by the renowned Fon of Bafut, managed to collect 'plenty beef.' Their difficulties began when they found themselves back at home, with Cholmondely the chimpanzee, Bug-Eye the bush-baby, and other founder members... and nowhere to put them

About the Author:

Gerald Durrell was born in 1925 at Jamshedpur, India. In 1928 his family returned to England and then went to live on the Continent. They settled on the island of Corfu, and during this time he made a special study of zoology and kept a large number of local wild animals as pets. In 1945 he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper and in 1947 he financed, organized and led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. He undertook numerous further expeditions, visiting Paraguay, Argentina, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Mauritius, Assam and Madagascar. His first television programme, 'Two in the Bush', was made in 1962 when he and his first wife travelled to New Zealand, Australia and Malaya. He went on to make seventy programmes out of his trips around the world. In 1959 he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, of which he was Director, and in 1964 he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. He was awarded the OBE in 1982.

As a self-described 'champion of small uglies', Durrell dedicated his life to the preservation of wildlife, and it is through his efforts that creatures such as the Mauritius pink pigeon and the Rodrigues fruit bat have avoided extinction. Encouraged to write about his life's work by his novelist brother Lawrence, 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, The Aye-Aye and I and, with Lee Durrell, Durrell in Russia.

Gerald Durrell died in 1995. Speaking about him to the Times Charles Secrett, Director of Friends of the Earth, said 'He was one of the first people to wake the world up to what was happening to the environment. His books and programmes helped a whole new generation of environmentalists come into being.'

Bibliographic Details

Title: A Zoo in My Luggage
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication Date: 1976
Binding: Soft cover
Illustrator: Thompson, Ralph
Condition: Good
Edition: 19th THUS.