Born Free by Joy Adamson

First published: 1960; illustrated

Subjects: Animals, nature, and science

Type of work: Autobiography and science

Time of work: The 1950’s

Recommended Ages: 10-18

Locale: Kenya, East Africa

Principal Personages:

• Joy Adamson, a childless, middle-aged woman whose boundless love for animals encompasses three orphaned lion cubs
• George Adamson, her husband, a dedicated senior game warden who helps care for the orphaned cubs and reintroduce Elsa to the wild
• Elsa, the weakest of the pride of lion cubs, who is adopted by the Adamsons
• Pati, a rock hyrax, a pet of the Adamsons who comes to accept and enjoy the presence of the lioness Elsa

Form and Content

At the beginning of the narrative, Joy Adamson introduces herself as the English wife of a game warden responsible for a huge territory of untamed African wilderness. Joy recounts how George kills a dangerous lioness, unaware that she has three small cubs. Since abandoning them would mean their certain death, George brings the cubs home to raise them. The couple ultimately devises a bottle formula that the cubs can tolerate, and they grow normally.

The author introduces Pati, a rare African catlike creature called a rock hyrax, to which she is very attached. Pati develops an unexpectedly close relationship with the lion cubs, who soon greatly exceed her in size. Throughout these early months, Joy feels herself becoming most fond of the smallest and most tame of the cubs, which she names Elsa.

After six months of living in and around their home, the cubs have clearly grown too large to continue as house pets and arrangements are made for flying two of them to a European zoo; the third, Elsa, will be retained. In the absence of her siblings, Elsa seems to deepen her bond with the Adamsons and to fear separation from them. They take her with them on safari, recognizing that they have become, in her eyes, “her pride.” They give the young lioness every opportunity to make exploratory forays into the wild, by herself or accompanied by their Somali servant, Nuru. Elsa displays a remarkable sense of fun in her interactions with smaller animals and yet is clearly developing some of the instinctive skills of a predator. She seems entirely fearless and ignores the size and anger of even elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffaloes, natural enemies of lions. Chapter 3 depicts Elsa as a one-year-old, “luminous, iridescent” creature who, on safari to the Indian Ocean, loves to walk the beach, chase coconuts, and dig in the sand. George’s bout with malaria on this trip foreshadows the imminent death of Pati, an event that deeply grieves Joy.

The narrative recounts hereafter a variety of George’s official expeditions for inspection, the prevention of illegal poaching, and the hunting of dangerous lions, on which he is accompanied by Joy and Elsa. The writer’s accounts of these trips center constantly on the activities of the developing lioness. By the age of eighteen months, Elsa has progressively honed her tracking and hunting skills, although she has still failed to display any instinct to kill food for herself. The difficulties of some of these extended and exhausting safaris seem only to strengthen the bonds between Elsa and her human adoptive parents.

By age two, the lioness is fully mature and, in one of her not infrequent absences from home, makes contact with a pride of lions, mating with one of them. The Adamsons observe that Elsa is increasingly expressing a desire to be with her own kind, and they determine to facilitate her break with themselves by transporting her to an area many miles from their home. They successfully encourage her to learn to kill for herself and then leave her, with government permission, in a highland game preserve. When they later return to assure themselves of Elsa’s well-being, however, they find her in poor health, her immune system apparently unable to adapt to a climate so different from that of her birth. Permission is obtained to relocate Elsa closer to her own birthplace and, having conducted her there and seen proof of her ability to kill to survive, the Adamsons quietly break camp and leave her. They are sure that Elsa, now in heat, will integrate with a pride in the wild.

Critical Context

Born Free is a truly extraordinary account of an apparently unique interaction between human beings and a lioness born in the wild. The work gives innumerable examples of the strength of the mutual bond between Elsa and the Adamsons. It centers on the maternal instincts of Joy that find expression in her concern for the animals under her care. The understatement and at times humor with which she narrates the strains and difficulties of their life emphasizes the authenticity of the work and the dedication of herself and her husband to the Africa that they so clearly love. The work’s simple style and direct, chronological narration emphasize rather than detract from the depth of the bond between the Adamsons and the lioness. Joy Adamson displays throughout the book a deep-rooted respect for animal life in all its African variations. The unemotional detachment with which she describes their activities and observations of wildlife also endow the work with a scientific objectivity. Its close and intimate portrayal of Elsa and many other animals grants the reader a sense of personal observation and participation in life in the African wild.

The author makes no effort to idealize the role played by those like herself and her husband. The scene is one of constant struggle for existence, with danger lurking not only in the climate and the wildlife but also in the ever-present native poachers seeking to pursue their own livelihood in ways traditional to the area before the arrival of the game wardens and conservationists.

This best-selling work, and the film made from it, were highly influential in the 1960’s. Its publication no doubt gave impetus to the movements for animal rights and the protection of wildlife and the environment that have developed. The work, therefore, has the cachet of a classic, and it has been widely translated and frequently republished. Born Free was followed by a sequel, Living Free (1961), also made into a film, which describes the relationship that the Adamsons reestablished with Elsa, who lived independent of humans with her three cubs in the African bush. The experiment was so clearly successful that the work’s final notation of the premature death of Elsa, from a blood parasite, does not suggest that she should have been retained in captivity, as was the case with her siblings.