With his unfailing charm, Durrell tells the story of how he finally fulfilled his childhood dream of founding his own private zoo, the Manor of Les Augres, on the English Channel island of Jersey. With the help of an enduring wife, a selfless staff, and a reluctant bank manager, the zoo grows, and readers are treated to a colorful parade of the zoo’s unusual animal inhabitants.

    A selection of outdoor editorials from The New York Times.

    "As valid today as more than two decades ago".--"New York Times".

    Yet despite the wartime austerity and growing mood of unease, Adrian Bell and his wife went about their business in Suffolk, happily absorbed in the daily tasks of rearing children and struggling against enemies like weather and unyielding clay. Theirs was a way of life shaped by the seasonal rhythms of planting, cutting hay, apple picking, cider-making, the harvest festival, and the midwinter lifting of sugar beet. Apple Acre is an intimate portrait of a hamlet content to draw its strength from the land.