Richard Adams (born May 9, 1920, Wash Common,Berkshire [now West Berkshire], England—died December 24, 2016) was an English author known for reinvigorating thegenre ofanthropomorphic fiction, most notably with the beloved children’s bookWatership Down (1972; film 1978), anovel that presents a naturalistic tale of the travails of a group of wild Europeanrabbits seeking a new home.

Adams was raised in a ruralcommunity outsideNewbury, Berkshire, where he led an isolated childhood mostly occupied by exploring hisbucolic surroundings. He enrolled at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1938, but the advent ofWorld War II the next year necessitated the postponement of his studies. In 1940 he enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps, joining an airborne company. Following the war, Adams completed abachelor’s degree in modern history at Oxford (1948). He found work with thecivil service, eventually advancing to assistant secretary in theprecursor to the Department of theEnvironment in 1968. (He cowrote the version of theClean Air Act passed that year.)

Because he was largely immersed in work and raising a family (he married in 1949), Adams did not begin writing until 1966. While on a car trip with his daughters, he began telling them a story about a warren of rabbits; the girls urged him to put the story to paper. Adams penned the tale over the next two years, consulting R.M. Lockley’s natural history studyThe Private Life of the Rabbit (1964) to ensure the accurate depiction of his rabbit protagonists, who leave their oppressive warren after it is threatened by a housing development. What emerged was asui generis work of fiction: unlike much anthropomorphicliterature, the animal characters inWatership Down, though able to talk, behave as they would in the wild—fighting,copulating, anddefecating.

The work was rejected by several publishing houses before a small independent publisher accepted it. The novel received rave reviews in Britain and was honoured with the 1972 Carnegie Medal in Literature and the 1972 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. The book became a runawaybest seller in theUnited States when it was published there in 1974.

The profits allowed Adams to begin writing full-time that year.Shardik (1974) relates the formation of a religion centred on a giant bear; the protagonists are human.The Plague Dogs (1977; film 1982) explores issues ofanimal rights through the tale of two dogs that escape from a research facility—possibly carrying thebubonic plague. The novelsThe Girl in a Swing (1980; film 1988) andMaia (1984) drew attention for their graphic depictions of sexuality. Adams took a different approach to anthropomorphism withTraveller (1988), told from the perspective ofRobert E. Lee’s horse. He returned to hisintrepid rabbits withTales from Watership Down in 1996.Daniel (2006) concerns a former slave who becomes an abolitionist.

Adams wrote two works of nonfiction with Max Hooper,Nature Through the Seasons (1975) andNature Day and Night (1978), and another with Lockley,Voyage Through the Antarctic (1982). His autobiography,The Day Gone By, was published in 1990.

Adams was president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1980–82). He was inducted into the Royal Society of Literature in 1975.

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