Menagerie Manor

London: Rupert Hart-Davis. Very Good in Very Good- dust jacket. 1964. First Edition. Hardcover. 0246636866 . No signatures. Some fading and a 1/2" tear to dust wrapper. Dust wrapper is price-clipped. Dust wrapper protected in archival mylar cover. ; First printing. 176 pages. Red papered boards. Page dimensions: 216 x 137mm. "At the end of A Zoo in my Luggage Gerald Durrell told of his search for a suitable place to house a zoo of his own and how he found what he was looking for in Jersey. Here is the story of that zoo, in which, of course, we meet many old favourites, animals whose capture was described in The Whispering Land and other earlier books and whose further adventures are related here." - from dust wrapper blurb. "On a brief visit I paid to that country [New Zealand], I explained to the authorities the work I was trying to do in Jersey and they - somewhat unwisely - asked me if there was any member of the New Zealand fauna which I would particularly like to have. Resisting the impulse to say 'everything' and thus appear greedy, I said that I was very interested in tuatara. The Minister concerned said that he was sure they could see their way to letting me have one [. . .] I explained that my idea was to building up breeding colonies, and it was difficult, to say the least, to form a breeding colony with one animal. Could I, perhaps, have a pair?" - page 170. ; 8vo .