About this title: Gerald Durrell, former director and owner of Jersey Zoo, is internationally famous for his books about collecting wild animals. This text describes an expedition to the remote territory of the Cameroons in West Africa, before independence.
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Description: Very Good. 0571053718 Condition: VERY GOOD. (Book may have one or a combination of the following characteristics: former library book, cover wear, name written inside cover, light underlining/highlighting, remainder mark, etc. Overall, the book is in solid shape. This is a blanket description. Please email us if you require a specific, detailed description of the book condition. We will typically respond within one week of your request). read more
Binding: Paper
Publisher: Ballantine, N. Y.
Date Published: 1953
Description: Cover Art. Good. No Jacket. Vintage Paperback. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Cover Price.50 cents-------Number F621------The cover has light wear....Owners name on the front cover.... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Tower
Date Published: @1953
Description: Good paperback. 16mo, paperback, 251pp, illus Baur, Sabine. edgewear, yellowing, rubbing, small wax mark front, corners curled, cover. corners bumped, text tanned, clean and tight. animals. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Date Published: 09/04/2001
ISBN-13:9780571209330ISBN:0571209335
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Date Published: 09/04/2001
ISBN-13:9780571209330ISBN:0571209335
Description: Used-Good. Book in good or better condition. Dispatched same day from warehouse. Please email with any questions for quick response. read more
Description: Satisfaction Guaranteed. Shipped quickly. 1953. Hardcover. 1st Ed. Used, good. Cover has some rubbing. Modest sunfade/discoloration on spine/cover. Dust jacket in Good condition. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking
Date Published: 1953-09-21
ISBN-13:9780670532810ISBN:0670532819
Description: Good + Format: Hardcover. Year: 1953. First Edition. Hardcover Book. No Jacket. Name on front end page in large letters. Biography of author taped to inside of front cover. read more
"Durrell's voice is winsome, I think, and a little wry, which to my ear dates more slowly than some other, more proper and ponderous nature writers. I've seen other reviewers complaining about the use of pidgin and the colonial attitude evinced by the author, but it strikes me as perfectly accurate to the early 1950s. There are also parts about the trapping, keeping, and selling animals I find unsavoury but true to the times. On the whole, though, his sheer love of wildlife wins the day for me, and Durrell expostulating with dilatory young boys holding dead birds (which they insist are perfectly healthy) is laugh-out-loud funny even after all this time."
"Durrell's books are so funny and absorbing; loaded with delightfully, engagingly anthropomorphic portraits of the rare animals he is collecting to finance his private zoo in the Isle of Jersey. This collecting trip takes place in Cameroon, in the rainforest not far from where the first African violet was discovered.
In fact that connection is why I recently decided to re-read it. While teaching a class on the rainforest to 1st & 2nd graders this year, I realized that I had actually read quite a lot of books about the rainforest, or set in the rainforest, but that they had been disguised under the sinister name "jungle." For example, Heart of Darkness is set in the Congo, the second largest rainforest in the world. (Although that is a bit like saying Marseilles is the second largest city in France, both statements are still true.) Apparently a true jungle is the dense, tangled undergrowth that springs up when a large rainforest tree is felled, taking advantage of the new access to light and air.
I read all of Durrell's books as a precocious child and realized recently that they are also set in rainforest because that's where the greatest number of animals can be found.They are certainly dated on re-reading-- there is something very Kipling-esque in the many scenes of Durrell speaking pidgin with all the native bearers and drinking sundowners with the local Brits--but he has some sense of humor about the typical British colonial and has a prescient awareness of environmental concerns and how important zoos would become in the cause of conservation.
And did I mention that his portraits of animals are priceless? It really made me feel like I had been to the rainforest and made friends with the animals. Totally worth the read."
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