Richard Adams

Richard Adams is a British novelist best known for his novel Watership Down. He died December 24, 2016.

Adams served in the British Army during World War II. After the war he was given a discharge to continue his studies and in 1948 received a master's degree from Worcester College at Oxford University. He was a senior civil servant and worked as an Assistant Secretary for the Department of Agriculture from 1948 to 1974.

Richard married Barbara Elizabeth Acland on September 26, 1949, and the couple had two daughters: Juliet Vera Lucy and Rosamond Beatrice Elizabeth. He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to them during a car ride, and they insisted he publish it as a book. It took two years to write and was rejected by thirteen publishers, but became a huge success immediately after initial publication. Since the publication of his second novel Shardik (in 1974), Richard Adams has been a full-time author. He lived, until his passing, with his wife at Whitchurch, about 10 miles from his birthplace.

Interesting trivia:

• Watership Down won the Carnegie Medal in 1972. To date, it has sold over 50 million copies world-wide.
• Adams contested the 1983 general election, standing as an Independent Conservative in the Spelthorne constituency on a platform of opposition to fox hunting.
• Adams' hobbies include chess, ornithology, folk-song, country pursuits, fly-fishing, and travel. He is a member of the Church of England.