The Overloaded Ark.

DURRELL, Gerald.

$650.00

Item Number: 131079

New York : Simon & Schuster, 1953.

First edition of Durrell’s first book. Octavo, original cloth. Signed by Gerald Durrell on the title page. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket, name to the front free endpaper. Jacket design by Bill English. Uncommon signed.

The Overloaded Ark is the chronicle of a six-month collecting trip, from December 1947 to August 1948, to the West African colony of British Cameroon – now Cameroon – that Durrell made with aviculturist and ornithologist John Yealland. 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 realize a long cherished dream to see Africa.