The Garden of the Gods is the third book in the autobiographical Corfu trilogy by naturalist and author, Gerald Durrell

Gerald Durrell

Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell, OBE was a naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter...

 (1925-1995), following My Family and Other Animals

My Family and Other Animals

My Family and Other Animals is an autobiographical work by naturalist Gerald Durrell, telling of the part of his childhood he spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939. It describes the life of the Durrell Family on the island in a humorous manner, and also richly discusses the fauna...

and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives

Birds, Beasts, and Relatives

Birds, Beasts, and Relatives is the second volume of the autobiographical Corfu Trilogy by naturalist Gerald Durrell. The trilogy describes his childhood spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939....

.

Summary

This book is a humorous description of events that took place on the Greek island of Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

 between the years 1935 and 1939. The author was just ten years of age when he moved to Corfu with his family: his mother, Louisa Florence Durrell

Louisa Florence Durrell

Louisa Dixie Durrell, born Louisa Florence Dixie was the mother of novelist Lawrence Durrell and naturalist Gerald Durrell...

, his brothers Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...

 and Leslie Durrell, and his sister, Margaret Durrell

Margaret Durrell

Margaret Isabel Mabel Durrell was the younger sister of novelist Lawrence Durrell, and elder sister of naturalist, author and TV presenter Gerald Durrell, whose Corfu Trilogy of novels — My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and Garden of the Gods — lampoons her...

 (referred-to in the book as Margo). As in the first two volumes of the Corfu trilogy, the book is filled with amusing and atmospheric descriptions of the author's exploits catching, and making pets of, many of the local fauna, and the subsequent effects on his family who again feature as major characters. Other characters from the prequels also reappear here, such as Spiro (their Greek friend and chauffeur), Theodore Stephanides

Theodore Stephanides

Theodore Stephanides was a Greek poet, author, doctor and naturalist. He is best remembered as the friend and mentor of the famous naturalist Gerald Durrell, featuring in Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and Fillets of Plaice, Durrell's brother Lawrence's Prospero's Cell, and Henry Miller's...

 (family friend, doctor, poet and naturalist) and Mr Kralefsky (Gerald's one-time tutor in Corfu). Humour is also brought in the form of several new and colourful characters, including Lumis Bean, Harry Bunny, Prince Jeejeebuoy, and Count Rossignol.

The Garden of the Gods was first published in 1978 by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd

William Collins (publisher)

William Collins was a Scottish schoolmaster and publisher.Collins was born near Glasgow in 1789. In 1819 he set up a publishing business, initially selling religious books. He produced the first Collins dictionary in 1824, when he also obtained a licence to publish the Bible...

, and simultaneously in America by Simon and Schuster (ISBN 0-671-24729-8).