Joy Adamson
Joy Adamson, born Joy-Friederike Victoria Gessner on January 20, 1910, in Troppau, Silesia, was a renowned British writer and conservationist known for her deep connection with wildlife in Kenya. Initially educated in diverse subjects, including music and archaeology, Adamson's life took a significant turn after she moved to Kenya during the rise of the Nazis in Europe. She became famous for her true-life narratives, particularly her book "Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds," which chronicles her experiences raising a lioness named Elsa. This book, along with its sequels "Living Free" and "Forever Free," garnered international acclaim and contributed to the global conservation movement.
Throughout her life, Adamson authored several other works, including children's books about her interactions with various animals, such as a cheetah named Pippa. Despite facing personal challenges, including tumultuous marriages, she dedicated much of her resources to wildlife preservation efforts, notably establishing the Elsa Wild Animal Appeal. Tragically, Adamson's life ended violently on January 3, 1980, when she was murdered near her camp in Kenya. Her legacy, however, endures through her writings and the awareness she raised for wildlife conservation.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Joy Adamson
- Born: January 20, 1910
- Birthplace: Troppau, Silesia, Austria (now Opava, Czech Republic)
- Died: January 3, 1980
- Place of death: Shaba Game Reserve, Kenya
Biography
Joy-Friederike Victoria Gessner was born on January 20, 1910, in Troppau, Silesia, then part of Austria. Her parents were Victor Gessner, a wealthy architect, and Traute Greipel Gessner; they divorced when their daughter was ten. On the family estate near Vienna where Joy spent her holidays, hunting was a favorite pastime. However, after shooting a deer when she was sixteen, Joy resolved never again to hunt for sport. In Vienna, where she was educated, Joy Gessner studied piano, as well as painting, archaeology, shorthand and typing, and even psychoanalysis. However, she quit a premedical course without qualifying for university admission.
In 1935, Joy Gessner married Victor von Klarwill, a Jewish businessman. With the Nazis gaining power, he felt he should leave Austria. On a voyage to Kenya, where they might locate, she met Peter Bally, a botanist. By the time her husband arrived, she had decided to divorce him and marry Bally. At this time she also settled on being called Joy. In 1944, after divorcing Bally, she married George Adamson, a British game warden. The marriage lasted, despite long separations, violent quarrels, and her frequent infidelities.
While traveling through Kenya with Bally, Adamson produced thousands of paintings of native flora, a number of which now hang in museums in Nairobi and Mombasa. The pictorial records she made of the twenty-two major Kenyan tribes appeared in the book The People of Kenya (1967). However, it was for her true- life narratives that Joy Adamson became best known. After killing a lioness in self-defense, George Adamson found three cubs that she had left behind. Two were sent to zoos, but the Adamsons kept the smallest, a female they named Elsa, and began training her to survive in the wild. The resulting book,Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds (1960), became popular throughout the world, as did a screen adapation and even the musical theme of the film. The stories of Elsa’s cubs were told in Living Free (1961) and Forever Free (1963). Adamson also wrote four books for children, two about her lions and two about her cheetah Pippa. Adamson’s publisher received her final book, describing her life with a leopard named Penny, a few days after her death. On January 3, 1980, Adamson was found murdered near her camp in the Shaba Game Reserve. Her killer was a young Kenyan she had fired. As she had requested, her ashes were buried in the graves of Elsa and Pippa. Ironically, nine years later, George Adamson would die at the hands of poachers.
Adamson received a Gold Grenfell Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society of England in 1947, an Award of Merit from Czechoslovakia in 1970, a Joseph Wood Crutch Medal from the United States Humane Society in 1971, and a Cross of Honor for Science and Art from Austria in 1976. Almost all of Adamson’s income went into causes such as the Elsa Wild Animal Appeal, which she established on behalf of Kenyan wildlife. However, her greatest achievement was in the publicity she brought to the plight of wild animals, which helped to make the conservation movement a global reality.