The White Island

John Lister-Kaye

Published by E.P. Dutton & Co, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated
dustjacket some damage.

Signed by author, with dedication.

When Camusfeárna, the house that had become world famous in Ring of Bright Water, burned to the ground, Gavin Maxwell moved, with the last of his otters, to Kyleakin Island, a small, windswept oasis of rocks and sea and sky, already endowed with a lighthouse and a few cottages, in the Hebrides, near the Isle of Skye. While there he invited the young naturalist John ListerKaye to come to Kyleakin Island so that they might collaborate on a book on British mammals, and meanwhile convert the island into a private zoo for the birds and mammals of the Western Highlands.

The White Island is Lister-Kaye's account of this venture, which, though it was never fulfilled, provided a strange, dramatic year for an ardent conservationist who could respond intuitively, and write eloquently of this wild and isolated world.

Already there were a few odd characters to inhabit the zoo — Teko, the otter, now become quite elderly; Crowlin, a carrion crow; and Owl, a quixotic bird who responded only to Chaucerian English. Others, more domesticated, included a ram and two goats, and the deerhounds, Hazel and Dirk. But the fox cubs escaped from their den, causing havoc on the island, Kyleakin's waters were invaded by a killer whale, and during trips between islands there were encounters with huge basking sharks.

John Lister-Kaye, an original master of style, unfolds vividly the gradual enchantment of the island—the friendships, humorous and touching, with the natives on the nearby shores of North Skye; the experiments to understand better the Nabits and habitats of birds and wildlife; the great storms that lashed the sea to a fury. And especially The White Island is a tribute to Gavin Maxwell, an evocation of his concluding months and aspirations, a final sequel to Ring of Bright Water.

"This is an enchanting, gentle book of birds, fish, foxes and wild seal, and makel me eager to cross the straits to the White Island." —London Sunday Times

"The White Island is a lasting tribute to the work on Kyleakin and to the efforts and plans of Gavin Maxwell."
—Western Daily Press