The Great Safari

– The Lives of George and Joy Adamson, creators of the Born Free Legend –

“George and Joy Adamson’s great safari in Africa was an adventure through glorious landscapes, inhabited by exotic tribes and teeming with game, which ended for each of them in violent death. Today they are remembered all over the world for the legend of their lioness, Elsa, told in the book and film Born Free.

This biography is a detective story that uncovers the astonishing reality behind the myth of a modern Eden. The penniless game warden, born in India, and the sophisticated artist from Vienna were brought together by a shared love of wilderness and an overpowering physical attraction. But their early marriage (Joy’s third) was continuously threatened by her uncontrolled temper and passions: her compulsion to go off on long painting expeditions, her pursuit of other men, her longing for the baby she refused to give George. Tormenting, tormented, and often alone, she painted 300 flowers and 600 tribal portraits (an irreplaceable record) now hanging in the National Museums of Kenya. Meanwhile, George’s solitary life as a game warden developed his remarkable serenity, his understanding of animals, and his capacity to survive charging elephants, mauling by a lion and gun battles with the Mau Mau.

For a time the adoption of Elsa restored this precarious marriage, with unpredictable and far-reaching results. Together they discovered truths about lions, cheetahs and leopards and their release in the wild, acknowledged by experts as new to science; Joy wrote the best-selling books that earned her the fortune that she gave to conservation; their example gave new impetus to the protection of animals and even the planet itself. Joy’s bequest to the future was far greater than the four game parks she helped to create, while George left a fifth and the wealth of his wisdom to future generations.

Adrian House’s familiarity with Kenya, his long friendship with the Adamsons, and his exclusive use of their diaries and most intimate letters vitalise a saga that is by turns breath-taking, hilarious, shocking and inspiring.”