Richard Adams

Richard Adams was one of Great Britain's most beloved authors, thanks to such timeless works as Watership Down, Shardik, and The Plague Dogs. Born on May 9, 1920 in the village of Walsh Common, Newbury, Berkshire, England, to Lilian Rosa Button, a homemaker, and Evelyn George Beadon Adams, a doctor, young Richard attended primary school at Horris Hill from 1926 to 1933, before matriculating at Bradfield College. From there, he studied modern history at Worcester College, Oxford, before being drafted into the British Army in 1938. During the war, Adams was posted to the Royal Army Service Corps, and served in Palestine, Europe, and the Far East, but never saw combat. Adams was discharged from the army in 1946, at which point he returned to Worcester College to complete his studies, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1948, and his master's in 1953. He obtained a job in the British Civil Service, married his wife, Elizabeth, in 1949, and the couple went on to have two daughters, Juliet and Rosamund. During a long car trip, Adams spun a tale of a community of anthropomorphic rabbits on a dangerous quest to find a new home to entertain his daughters. This tale would eventually turn into Watership Down, his first novel. Adams began writing Watership Down in 1966, and completed it in 1968. Over the next four years, four publishers and three agencies rejected the manuscript, before it was finally published by Rex Collings in 1972. The book was an instant success, receiving rapturous reviews, selling over a million copies worldwide, and earning Adams both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the two most prestigious children's book awards in Great Britain (to this day, he is one of only six authors to earn both prizes in one year). Following the publication of his second novel, Shardik, in 1974, Adams quit his social service job in order to focus on writing full time, and was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature the following year. Adams' next major work, 1977's The Plague Dogs, was a biting satire about animal experimentation. True to his love of animals, Adams served as the president of the RSPCA in 1982, and campaigned against fur in the fashion industry. Adams wiled away the twilight years of his life in comfort and seclusion in the village of Whitchurch, a mere ten miles from his birthplace, with his beloved Elizabeth at his side. On December 24, 2016, Richard Adams died in Oxford, due to complications from a blood disorder. He was 96 years old.