In 1935, Louisa Durrell and her four children – Lawrence (Larry), Leslie, Margaret (Margo), and Gerald (Jerry) – moved to live in Corfu. The Durrell family was immortalized in Gerald Durrell's iconic book "My Family and Other Animals," as well as recently in the television adaptation of the book "The Durrells." But what was the true life of the members of this unique family? What was the reason they settled in Corfu – and what happened to them after they left the island?

The real story of the Durrells is worthy of the great literature that captured it, and Michael Haag, the author of "Alexandria: City of Memory," is the ideal narrator. Knowing the family firsthand, he draws additional material from diaries, letters, and unpublished autobiographical fragments.

The book follows the family’s story from the children's early years in India and the crisis that brought them to England, to their years in Greece and Corfu. It recalls the unique people they met in Corfu – the biologist Theodore, the taxi driver Spyros Halikiopoulos, and Kostis the convict – as well as the visit of American writer Henry Miller.

Haag reveals the story of the Durrells' departure from Corfu, as well as Larry and Margo’s last-minute escape before the war, while tracing Larry's rise as a globally recognized author with "The Alexandria Quartet" and Gerald's emergence as a naturalist and protector of endangered species, while also describing the lives of the other family members, their friends, and other animals.

The edition includes family photographs from the archive of Gerald Durrell, many of which are published here for the first time. “The true story of the Durrell family is fascinating – Haag skillfully follows their steps in pre-war Corfu, England, and India.” Simon Nye, screenwriter of the ITV series The Durrells