Louisa Durrell was the mother of Lawrence, Leslie, Margo and Gerry Durrell.
14 Facts About Louisa Durrell
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Louisa Durrell was featured in Gerald Durrell's autobiographical Corfu trilogy, which tells about the Durrells' years in Corfu from 1935 to 1939 in a somewhat fictionalized way.
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In India, she met and married Lawrence Samuel Louisa Durrell, an English engineer born in India.
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Louisa Durrell was described as an anxious mother, shunning social contact just to be with her children during their formative years.
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Louisa Durrell was unusual for mingling with Indians, more than many colonials, to learn of local spirits and cuisine.
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Louisa Durrell did not conform to the views of her time regarding the segregation of social groups.
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Louisa Durrell's husband died of a brain tumour in 1928 in Dalhousie, India, when she was 42, and Louisa decided to move her family to England.
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Louisa Durrell left India with her family under dire circumstances.
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Louisa Durrell bought a house in the area and named it Dixie Lodge.
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Louisa Durrell moved again in 1935 with her eldest son, Lawrence, and his new wife, Nancy, to the island of Corfu, taking her other children with her.
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Louisa Durrell portrayed his mother as the family's well-meaning but slightly eccentric matriarch in what is known as the Corfu trilogy: My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, and The Garden of the Gods.
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In June 1939, before the outbreak of the Second World War, Louisa Durrell returned to England.
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Louisa Durrell died in Bournemouth in 1964 at the age of 78.
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Gerald Louisa Durrell's trilogy has been adapted several times for British TV and radio series.