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This is a book about the joys of watching the world.
It is autobiographical, but it is not about me; it is about what I have observed. There is no agonised soul-searching, no sneaky kiss-and-tell, no pretentious journey to find the ‘real me’. I am not interested in myself. But I am fascinated by the world around me and what I have been able to see and record over a period of six decades of professional observation, first as a student of animal behaviour, and then as a student of human behaviour.
Desmond Morris was born in 1928. Educated at Birmingham and Oxford universities, he became the Curator of Mammals at London Zoo in 1959, a post he held for eight years.
In 1967 he published The Naked Ape which has sold over 10 million copies worldwide and has changed the way we view our own species forever.
An accomplished artist, TV presenter, film maker and writer, Desmond Morris's books have been published in over thirty-six countries.
In 1967 his book The Naked Ape was published becoming one of the top 100 bestsellers of all time. During his long life he has published:
- 48 scientific papers,
- written over 80 books,
- and has been published in 43 different languages.
Between 1956 and 1998, he presented more than 700 television programmes.
He has also produced over 3,400 paintings and has held 60 solo exhibitions.
In 1968 he and his wife, Ramona, moved to Malta where their son Jason was born. Returning to take up a research fellowship at Oxford in 1974, he began studying human body language and in 1977, his book Manwatching was published.
He remained in Oxford until 2019, when, following the death of his wife, he moved to Ireland to live near to his family there. And at the age of 94 he is still actively writing and painting.