He died peacefully on Christmas Eve 2016. He wrote about his childhood and youth, including the time he served in the army in World War II, in his biography 'The Day Gone By'.ĭuring the last year of his life he kept a blog. It was written when he was 93.ĭuring his later years Richard and his wife Elizabeth lived in Whitchurch, Hampshire, very close to Watership Down, and not far from where they had both grown up. His goal was always to tell a good story, ideally one so good you can't put it down! His last work, 'The Adventures of Eggbox Dragon', which is a picture-book for younger children, will be published posthumously by Hodder in 2017. Others of his books include Shardik, Maia, Tales from Watership Down, The Girl in a Swing and The Plague Dogs, the last two of which, together with Watership Down, have been filmed. Watership Down has become a modern classic and won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1972. When Watership Down was finally published, it sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. They insisted he publish the tale as a book. He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters, Juliet and Rosamond, on a trip to Stratford-on-Avon, to see a play. Richard George Adams (born 9 May, 1920) is best-remembered as the author of Watership Down, but wrote many other novels, short stories, poems and a biography. The New York Times Book Review, What a relief to read of characters who have honor and courage and dignity, who will risk their lives for others, whose love for their families and friends and community is enduring and effective, To capture the feeling of the verdant English landscape in Richard Adamss 'Watership Down' (Atheneum, 496 pages.

Richard adams books