The Durrell family are immortalised in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other
Animals and its ITV adaptation, The Durrells. But what of the real life
Durrells? Why did they go to Corfu in the first place - and what happened
to them after they left? The real story of the Durrells is as surprising
and fascinating as anything in Gerry's books, and Michael Haag, with his
first hand knowledge of the family, is the ideal narrator, drawing on
diaries, letters and unpublished autobiographical fragments. The Durrells
of Corfu describes the family's upbringing in India and the crisis that
brought them to England and then Greece. It recalls the genuine characters
they encountered on Corfu - Theodore the biologist, the taxi driver Spiro
Halikiopoulos and the prisoner Kosti - as well as the visit of American
writer Henry Miller. And Haag has unearthed the story of how the Durrells
left Corfu, including Margo's and Larry's last-minute escapes before the
War. An extended epilogue looks at the emergence of Larry as a world famous
novelist, and Gerry as a naturalist and champion of endangered species, as
well as the lives of the rest of the family, their friends and other
animals. The book is illustrated with family photos from the Gerald Durrell
Archive, many of them reproduced here for the first time.