Corfu Books in Order

The Corfu books follow Gerald Durrell back to his own childhood on a sunlit Greek island, seen from the distance of adulthood but with all the immediacy of a boy’s memory. Together they make up a loose trilogy that blends family comedy with close observation of animals and landscapes.

The story begins when the Durrell family abandons grey, rainy England for Corfu, hoping that sunshine will improve everyone’s health and spirits. In My Family and Other Animals the young Gerald roams beaches, olive groves, and hillsides, collecting insects, reptiles, birds, and any other creature that will tolerate his attention. At the same time, his mother and older siblings wrestle with leaking villas, eccentric neighbors, and their own clashing temperaments.

Although each book is made up of self-contained episodes, certain threads run through them all. There are tutors who attempt to educate Gerald and are repeatedly derailed by his interest in wildlife. There are local friends and guides, from practical villagers to scholarly naturalists, who open doors into the island’s culture and ecology. And always there are animals—puppies, owls, scorpions, octopi, and countless smaller beings—sharing the family’s space in unlikely ways.

In Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods, Durrell deepens both sides of this double portrait. The natural history becomes more detailed, with longer looks at the island’s seasons and habitats, while the family scenes grow even funnier and more layered. New visitors arrive, old friends return, and the already crowded house gains fresh collections of creatures.

The tone across the trilogy stays light and affectionate, but there is an undercurrent of nostalgia. Readers know that the years on Corfu fall between world wars and that this carefree world will not last. Durrell keeps the focus on the pleasures of discovery—of both the island and his own vocation as a naturalist—without ignoring the sense that time is running out.

You can read the books out of sequence, since each volume stands alone, but most people start with My Family and Other Animals and then move through Birds, Beasts and Relatives to The Garden of the Gods. Taken together, they offer a detailed, funny, and surprisingly tender record of a family and an island that shaped the rest of Durrell’s life.

If you like memoirs that mix sharp character sketches with rich nature writing, the Corfu series is an inviting place to linger.