A Lion Called Christian

The enchanting true story of London's coolest cat.In 2008, YouTube.com featured an extraordinary two-minute film clip that became an overnight phenomenon. It shows the remarkable, highly moving reunion of two men and their pet lion, Christian, after they had left him in Africa with Born Free’s George Adamson, who would introduce him into his rightful home in the wild.A Lion Called Christian tells the backstory, of how John Rendall and Anthony ‘Ace’ Bourke, visitors to London from Australia in 1969, bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods for 250 guineas. For a while, the three of them lived together as flatmates in a furniture shop in the King’s Road, Chelsea, where Christian quickly became a local celebrity.But the lion cub was growing up, fast, and even the walled church garden in which he exercised wouldn’t be big enough for him for much longer.How could John and Ace avoid having to incarcerate him in a zoo for the rest of his life?It was thanks to Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, stars of Born Free, who dropped into the shop, that Christian was subsequently flown to Kenya and placed under the expert care of Adamson. After settling Christian in, Ace and John did not return to Kenya to see Christian for a full year. Thanks to the internet age, their very special and touching reunion is again being enjoyed by millions.A Lion Called Christian is the full story behind the amazing clip. Originally published in 1971, it has now been fully revised and updated by the authors, with stunning photographs of Christian from cuddly cub in Chelsea to magnificent lion in Africa. It is a unique and extraordinary story of its time, and is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.