Joy Adamson

Joy Adamson
Adamson with Elsa the lion c. 1958
Born	Friederike Victoria Gessner (1910-01-20)20 January 1910 Troppau, Austrian Silesia, Austria-Hungary (now Opava, Czech Republic)
Died	3 January 1980(1980-01-03) (aged 69) Shaba National Reserve, Kenya
Cause of death	Homicide
Resting place	Meru National Park
Occupations	Naturalist Artist Author
Spouses	Sir Viktor Von Klarwill ​ ​ (m. 1935; div. 1937)​ Peter René Oscar Bally ​ ​ (m. 1938; div. 1944)​ George Adamson ​ ​ (m. 1944; sep. 1970)​
Writing career
Language	English
Period	1960–1980
Genre	Nonfiction
Subjects	Animals, African culture, nature
Years active	1960–1980
Notable work	Born Free
Literature portal

Friederike Victoria "Joy" Adamson (née Gessner; 20 January 1910 – 3 January 1980) was a naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.^[1]