Gavin Maxwell

Gavin Maxwell was born and raised in Scotland – a childhood he later wrote about in The House of Elrig (1965). After Oxford University and wartime service he bought the Hebridean island of Soay where he tried to establish a commercial shark fishery, an experience described in his first book Harpoon at a Venture (1952). In 1956 he travelled through Iraq with the explorer Wilfred Thesiger, later publishing A Reed Shaken By The Wind (1959), hailed as one of the finest works on Arabian travel. During this trip he encountered the Indian smooth-coated otter: previously unknown to the west, the animal was named after the author, Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli.