Watership Down author Richard Adams dies aged 96

Image: AndrewRH via Wikimedia Commons

Watership Down author Richard Adams, who created the story of refugee rabbits that became one of the best-selling children’s books of all time, has died at the age of 96. 

Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire, on May 9, 1920 and fell in love with nature during childhood walks to the River Kennet. His father, a rural doctor, would challenge him to identify the animals he spotted. The countryside surrounding his home in the village of Wash Common was to be the inspiration for the book that made his name. 

While studying History at Worcester College, Oxford University, Adams was called up to serve in the Second World War and joined the Royal Army Service Corps as a parachutist in 1939. After completing his degree in 1946 he worked for the civil service. 

In a true ‘girl-next-door’ romance, in 1949 he married his neighbour Elizabeth, who he had tutored in Latin when she was 17. 

Writing was a talent Adams discovered late in life. He entertained his daughters Juliet and Rosamund with tales before bedtime and on long journeys. He was 52 when he began his story of rabbits Hazel and Fiver and their desperate escape from the destruction of their warren. His invention of a bunny language called Lapine captured his children’s imagination and Juliet encouraged him to put it in writing. 

The book was rejected by seven publishers as it was not a run-of-the-mill animal story. Believing that a book should be read by people of any age, Adams said: ‘They felt the language was too grown-up, yet the older children wouldn't like it because it was about rabbits!’ 

The small publisher Rex Collings eventually published the book in 1972 and it was an instant success, winning the Carnegie Medal and The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize that year. The Economist famously noted: ‘If there is no place for Watership Down in children’s bookshops, then children’s literature is dead.’ 

It was translated into 20 languages and sold more than 50 million copies, even reaching countries where they don’t have rabbits - publishers were forced to put gerbils on those front covers instead. 

Despite its popularity, Watership Down was divisive. Critics suggested that its harrowing portrayal of rabbits fighting and being caught in snares was too dark for children. Feminists also argued that the female rabbits were too passive. 

In response, Adams claimed: ‘It was simply told with no thought of reactions from the public. It was never an anti-feminist book, it was simply a spontaneous story, and I always felt it should be seen as such.’ The 1996 follow-up collection of short stories, Tales from Watership Down, featured female characters more prominently. 

The book was adapted for film in 1978, with animations voiced by John Hurt and Richard Briers, but Adams was disappointed by the film’s departure from the story, which was more reverent and less adventurous than the novel. 

He wasn’t the only one to take issue with the film. In 2016 Channel 5's decision to air it at 2.25pm on Easter Sunday provoked outraged tweets from parents whose children were traumatised by its gruesome scenes. A £20million BBC and Netflix remake is set to star actors including Olivia Coleman, John Boyega, Gemma Arterton, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult. Executive producer of the project, Rory Aitken, has said that ‘visually it won’t be as brutal and scarring’. 

Adams was a keen conservationist and was proud of the impact his writing had on society’s view of animals. He noted: ‘The sympathy for rabbits and general wildlife who have no human protection rose.’ Life began to imitate art in 2012 when Adams spoke out against housing plans in Sandleford, Berkshire, the inspiration for the book’s own Sandleford Warren, from which the rabbits escaped. 

He was also concerned by animal research and wrote his 1977 novel The Plague Dogs from the perspective of dogs escaping a laboratory. He served as president of the RSPCA from 1980-82 before accompanying naturalist RM Lockley to Antarctica. The pair co-authored Voyage to the Antarctic, a book about their journey. 

In 2006 he supported the animal rights and conservation charity the Born Free Foundation, writing the short story Leopard Aware for the charity book Gentle Footprints. 

Despite acknowledging to The Guardian, ‘I can’t write about real people. I’m a fantasist’, his stories didn’t shy away from hard topics such as slavery and child abuse. Shardik, the book he was most proud of, was one such novel. The story, published in 1974, influenced other authors too, with Stephen King paying homage to Shardik in his Dark Tower series. 

Over Adams’s long career he published 20 books but his later works never matched the success of his debut novel. Many readers also objected to his novels The Girl in a Swing and Maia, published in the 1980s, because of their sexual content. 

Adams did not allow age to stop him from writing. He completed his last story The Egg-box Dragon when he was 95. He could still recite long passages of Shakespeare and other literary masterpieces from memory at his last public events. 

In 2013 he even adapted to the digital age, hosting a discussion on the social media website Reddit with the help of his grandson. He had six grandchildren and his first great-grandchild, Florence, was born in 2015. In his later years he moved with his wife to Whitchurch, Hampshire, never far from the birthplace he loved. His house was always full of figurines of the animal that made him famous.