Books with title Born Free, A Lioness of Two Worlds

There have been many accounts of the return to the wild of tame animals, but since its original publication in 1960, when The New York Times hailed it as a “fascinating and remarkable book,” Born Free has stood alone in its power to move us.Joy Adamson's story of a lion cub in transition between the captivity in which she is raised and the fearsome wild to which she is returned captures the abilities of both humans and animals to cross the seemingly unbridgeable gap between their radically different worlds. Especially now, at a time when the sanctity of the wild and its inhabitants is increasingly threatened by human development and natural disaster, Adamson's remarkable tale is an idyll, and a model, to return to again and again.Illustrated with the same beautiful, evocative photographs that first enchanted the world forty years ago and updated with a new introduction by George Page, former host and executive editor of the PBS series Nature and author of Inside the Animal Mind, this anniversary edition introduces to a new generation one of the most heartwarming associations between man and animal.

Dust jacket notes: "Out of Africa comes the story of the most remarkable association between man and wild beast ever told. Joy Adamson is the wife of a game warden in Kenya. One day her husband was called out to deal with a man-eating lion. While stalking the lion he was suddenly charged by a lioness whom he had to shoot in self-defense. In the crevice of some nearby rocks he found three cubs. They decided to rear one of them as a pet. This is by no means the first case of a lion cub being reared by Europeans. But in all previous instances, the foster parents eventually had to face up to the problem of how to dispose of a fully grown lion; they had to choose between the two alternatives, consigning it to a zoo or giving it a freedom which it was unfit to enjoy or even survive. The Adamson's foresaw this dilemma and worked out a solution. They deliberately set about training their lioness, Elsa, to kill and fend for herself. They succeeded in turning her back into the fierce wild animal nature had intended her to be. At the same time they preserved undiminished the bond of confidence and affection which they had established with her as a pet. Today the lioness lives the proud life of the king of beasts. She has found a mate and had produced a litter of cubs. Her foster parents visit her at regular intervals. On arrival in her area they fire a few shots in the air and wait for her to come bounding out of the bush. She is always touchingly glad to see them and gives them a boisterous welcome. Hers is a unique story-of a lion who has bridged the gulf between two worlds, that of the jungle and of man, to enjoy the freedom of both. Never before has the life history of a wild animal been so intimately recorded over such a long period or been documented at every stage by such a remarkable collection of photographs, numbering in the thousands, of which over one hundred are reproduced in the book."

There have been many tales of animals' return to the wild, but since its first publication in 1960, when the New York Times hailed it as a "fascinating and remarkable book," one stands alone as the most original and perhaps best-loved animal story. Born Free is a classic which traces the extraordinary development of the lion cub Elsa in transition between two radically different worlds. As it captures the spirit of humankind's ability to cross the barriers to the natural world, Joy Adamson's unique tale remains -- in these destructive times, with one ecological disaster following upon another -- an idyll to return to again and again. Illustrated with all the highly evocative photographs that initially stirred the world, and updated with a new introduction by Dr. George B. Schaller, Director of Wildlife Conservation for the New York Zoological Society and long-time acquaintance of the Adamsons, this large-sized paperback edition again renews one of the most remarkable associations between man and wild beast ever told.