Durrell family


The Durrell family was an English family that became well known because two of its members were famous writers. It has been the subject of several autobiographies, the TV series My Family and Other Animals, the television film by the same name, My Family and Other Animals, the largely fictionalized TV series The Durrells, and the documentary What the Durells Did Next.

Family members

The family was founded by Lawrence Samuel Durrell, an Anglo-Indian engineer, and his wife Louisa Durrell. Their children were:
Lawrence Samuel Durrell, Louisa Durrell and their children were all born in India during the British Raj as was Louisa Durrell's father. Following Lawrence Samuel Durrell's death in 1928, Mrs Durrell and her three younger children moved to the United Kingdom, where Lawrence had already been sent to be educated. In 1935 they moved to Corfu, following Lawrence's earlier move there with his wife Nancy. They remained in Corfu until 1939, when the outbreak of World War II forced most of them to return to England. Gerald's autobiographical Corfu Trilogy and several short stories record the family's time in Corfu, in a heavily fictionalised way.