The Overloaded Ark, first published in 1953, is the debut book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell

Gerald Durrell

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

. It is the chronicle of a six months collecting trip to the West African colony of British Cameroon - now Cameroon

Cameroon

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...

 - (Dec 1947 - Aug 1948) - that Durrell made with the highly regarded aviculturist and ornithologist John Yealland

John Yealland

John Yealland was a noted British aviculturist and ornithologist. He is best remembered for helping Sir Peter Scott found the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. He accompanied Gerald Durrell on his first animal collecting expedition to the British Cameroon in 1947 - 1948. He went on to...

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Their reasons for going on the trip were twofold - ' to collect and bring back alive some of the fascinating animals, birds, and reptiles that inhabit the region,' and secondly, for both men to realise a long cherished dream to see Africa.

Its combination of comic exaggeration and environmental accuracy, portrayed in Durrell's light, clever prose, made it a great success. It launched Durrell's career as a writer of both non-fiction and fiction, which in turn financed his work as a zookeeper and conservationist.

The Bafut Beagles

The Bafut Beagles

The Bafut Beagles by British naturalist Gerald Durrell tells the story of Durrell's collecting expedition to the Cameroons, made in 1949, with Kenneth Smith....

and A Zoo in My Luggage

A Zoo in My Luggage

A Zoo in My Luggage by British naturalist Gerald Durrell is the story of Durrell's 1957 animal collecting trip to British Cameroon, the northwestern corner of present day Cameroon. First published in 1960, it is one of a half-dozen books about animal collecting trips that Durrell wrote....

are sequels of sorts, telling of his later returns to the region.

History

Durrell had married Jacqueline Sonia Rasen, 21, a music student, on 26 February 1951. She knew that he could keep a company spellbound with his talk, and wondered why he couldn't present stories of his animal collecting to a wider audience. Durrell, having criticized a BBC radio talk about life in West Africa, sent in a fifteen minute radio script about his trials attempting to catch a hairy frog in the Cameroons. It was his first piece of professional writing.

The BBC accepted the script, which he read, live, on the BBC Home Service

BBC Home Service

The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...

the morning of Sunday 9 December 1951. The Overloaded Ark appeared in 1953.