When Watership Down was finally published, it sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Watership Down has become a modern classic and won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1972. It took two years to write and was rejected by thirteen publishers.

He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters, Juliet and Rosamund, and they insisted he publish it as a book. Since 1974, following publication of his second novel, Shardik, he has been a full-time author. He was a senior civil servant who worked as an Assistant Secretary for the Department of Agriculture, later part of the Department of the Environment, from 1948 to 1974. He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1948 and of Master of Arts in 1953. He received a class B discharge enabling him to return to Worcester to continue his studies for a further two years (1946-48). In 1940 Adams joined the British Army, in which he served until 1946. On 3 September 1939 Neville Chamberlain announced that the United Kingdom was at war with Germany. In 1938 he went up to Worcester College, Oxford to read Modern History.

From 1933 until 1938 he was educated at Bradfield College. Finally, in the principal part of the book, we are told eight enchanting stories about the rabbits of the Down- Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and their companions-including the impact on the warren of the obsessive doe Flyairth, and the appointment of Hyzenthlay as a female Chief Rabbit and partner to Hazel.Īll listners- the millions who remember Watership Down with the deepest affection, and also those for whom this volume will be their first encounter with the rabbits- will find these nineteen tales utterly compelling, the fruit of Richard Adams spellbinding narrative power and ability to conjure up a world that is at the same time both real and unreal.Īdams was born in Newbury, Berkshire. Then we listen in as Dandelion, the rabbits' master storyteller, relates the thrilling adventures experienced by Al-ahrairah, the mythical rabbit hero, and his stalwart, Rabscuttle, during the long journey home after their terrible encounter with the Black Rabbit of Inlé (as narrated in Watership Down). Tales From Watership Down begins with some of the great folk stories well known to all rabbits.

Now Richard Adams returns, to tell us what happened to the rabbits after their defeat of General Woundwort. Watership Down was one of this century's best-loved works of imaginative literature.

Tales from watership down