Joy Adamson to a number of publishers before it was bought by Harvill Press, part of HarperCollins. Published in 1960, it became a bestseller, spending 13 weeks at the top of "The New York Times" Best Seller list and nearly a year on the chart overall. The success of the book was due to both the story of Elsa and the dozens of photographs of her. Readers had pictures of many of the events of Elsa's life leading up to her release. Subsequent books were also heavily illustrated. "Born Free" received largely favorable reviews from critics. Adamson worked closely with publishers to
Daughter of the Lioness of the Lioness Characters." There is some doubt in the wider community as to the proper title for this series. Although by most online sources it is called the "Daughter of the Lioness" series, there have been several published editions of the books in which this phrase does not appear whatsoever, leading to some uncertainty over whether this can be considered the correct series title. For example, the original Scholastic Australia paperback editions (the first version to be released) not only do not contain the phrase "Daughter of the Lioness" in any place, but they do not identify any title