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Beasts in My Belfry
  • Published: 16 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781405978903
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

Beasts in My Belfry





Gerald Durrell's legendary account of his coming-of-age at Whipsnade, published to celebrate the centenary of his birth

‘A renegade who was right . . . He was truly a man before his time’ SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

‘An account of Durrell’s very first job, as an animal handler at Whipsnade, just after the end of the Second World War, an experience that helped fashion his philosophy of animal keeping’ GUARDIAN

At the age of two I made up my mind quite firmly and unequivocally that the only thing I wanted to do was to study animals. Nothing else interested me.

Republished to celebrate the centenary of his birth, here is Gerald Durrell’s legendary account of his coming-of-age as a reader, writer and budding naturalist at Whipsnade Zoo. He joyfully recaptures the glory of this single formative year where, in the crucible of muck, operatic brown bears, and reading Pliny by night and tending to the lions by day, the passionate worldview of one of the century’s great animal-loving renegades came into full view.

‘One of the finest and most lyrical nature writers in English’ OBSERVER

  • Published: 16 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781405978903
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

About the author

Gerald Durrell

Gerald Durrell (1925-1995) moved from England to Corfu with his family when he was eight. He spent much of his time studying the island's wildlife and surprising his family by keeping lots of very unusual pets in very unexpected places. He grew up to be a famous naturalist and conservationist, leading expeditions to exotic places such as Argentina, Sierra Leone, Assam and Madagascar. Durrell dedicated his life to the preservation of wildlife, especially the less glamorous kinds, which he called 'little brown jobs' and 'small uglies'. It is through his efforts that creatures such as the Mauritius pink pigeon and the Mallorcan midwife toad have avoided extinction.

Over his lifetime he presented many TV shows, and wrote thirty-seven books, including My Family and Other Animals and its two sequels,Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods. He founded Jersey Zoo in 1959 as a centre for the conservation of endangered species, and in 1963 created the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust - later renamed Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in his honour - of which his wife, Lee, is still Honorary Director. He was awarded the OBE in 1982.

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