In Menagerie Manor Durrell recalls how he became Lord of the Manor of Led Augres on Jersey and fulfilled a lifelong ambition by founding a private zoo. With the help of an enduring wife, a selfless staff and a reluctant bank manager, the zoo grows: one by one the reader is introduced to the village idiocy of Trumpy, the grey-winged trumpeter; the riotous tactics of Claudius the tapir; the devastating youth and moving romance of N'Pongo, an African gorilla; and the antics of a whole menagerie of orang-utans, lions, bears, porcupines, and other creatures.