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A CLASSIC MEMOIR OF TWO PIONEERING ADVENTURERS Before Joy Adamson went to Africa, before Margaret Mead sailed to Samoa, before Dian Fossey was even born, a Kansas teenager named Osa Leighty married Martin Johnson, a pioneering photographer just back from a 'round-the-world cruise with Jack London. Together the Johnsons flew and sailed to Borneo, to Kenya, and to the Congo, filming Simba and other popular nature movies with Martin behind the camera and Osa holding her rifle at the ready in case the scene's big game star should turn hostile. This bestselling memoir retraces their careers in rich detail, with precisely observed descriptions and often heart-stopping anecdotes. Illustrated with scores of the dramatic photos that made the Johnsons famous, it's a book sure to delight every lover of true adventure.… (more)
275. I Married Adventure The Lives and Adventure of Martin and Osa Johnson, by Osa Johnson (read 15 Aug 1946) I believe I liked this book, but my life and politics were taking up all my diary entries and on Aug 15 I merely noted: "Read book." ( )
The story of a married couple who were friends with Jack London who were pioneers in photographing and later filming wild life in Africa at the turn of the 19th. century. ( )
With all my love, I dedicate this book to the memory of my husband, whose work will be an everlasting monument to his heroic dreams and indefatigable spirit.
First words
In light of the placid expectation that because I was born in Chanute, Kansas, I would grow up, marry, raise a family, and die there, I find it amusing to recall a certain hot September day of my seventh year, when I asked my father for ten cents.
A CLASSIC MEMOIR OF TWO PIONEERING ADVENTURERS Before Joy Adamson went to Africa, before Margaret Mead sailed to Samoa, before Dian Fossey was even born, a Kansas teenager named Osa Leighty married Martin Johnson, a pioneering photographer just back from a 'round-the-world cruise with Jack London. Together the Johnsons flew and sailed to Borneo, to Kenya, and to the Congo, filming Simba and other popular nature movies with Martin behind the camera and Osa holding her rifle at the ready in case the scene's big game star should turn hostile. This bestselling memoir retraces their careers in rich detail, with precisely observed descriptions and often heart-stopping anecdotes. Illustrated with scores of the dramatic photos that made the Johnsons famous, it's a book sure to delight every lover of true adventure.
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Book description
Osa Johnson's travel adventures and explorations come across as vibrantly today as they did when they were written in 1940. They're richer now with the added perspective of history, and the added wealth of Martin Johnson's photographs of charging elephants, reposing lions, and head hunters roasting heads, marshmallow-like, over a campfire. The life the Johnsons led was nothing like the life Osa expected. From 1917 to 1937 she and Martin were visiting and filming cannibals in the New Hebrides, orangutans in Borneo, and the rich gamut of wildlife available on safari in Kenya and the Congo. Osa led a life the likes of which won't be seen again, and she tells a good story, too.