RICHARD ADAMS (AUTHOR)

'Richard George Adams' (born May 9, 1920) is an English novelist who is best known for two novels with animal characters, ''Watership Down'' and ''The Plague Dogs''.

Contents

Life and work

Books

External links

Life and work

Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire. He served in the British Army from 1940 until 1946, during World War II. He was given a Class B discharge to continue his studies and in 1948 he received a master's degree from Worcester College at Oxford University. He was a senior civil servant who worked as an Assistant Secretary for the Department of Agriculture, later part of the Department of the Environment, from 1948 to 1974. Since 1974, following publication of his second novel, ''Shardik'', he has been a full-time author.
He originally began telling the story of ''Watership Down'' to his two daughters, Juliet and Rosamund, and they insisted he publish it as a book. It took two years to write and was rejected by thirteen publishers. When ''Watership Down'' was finally published, it sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. ''Watership Down'' has become a modern classic and won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for Children's Fiction in 1972. To date, Adams' best-known work has sold over 50 million copies world-wide, earning him more than all his other books put together.
As of 1982, he was President of the RSPCA.
He also contested the 1983 general election, standing as an ''Independent Conservative'' in the Spelthorne constituency on a platform of opposition to fox hunting.
He now lives, with his wife, Elizabeth, within 10 miles of his birthplace.

Books

★ ''Watership Down'' (1972)

★ Beklan Empire

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★ ''Shardik'' (1974)

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★ ''Maia'' (1984)

★ ''Nature Through the Seasons'' (1975)

★ ''The Tyger Voyage'' (1976)

★ ''The Plague Dogs'' (1977)

★ '' (1977) (also published as ''The Ship's Cat'')

★ ''The Girl in a Swing'' (1980)

★ ''The Iron Wolf and Other Stories'' (1980, published in the USA as ''The Unbroken Web'')

★ ''The Phoenix Tree'' (1980, a collection by various authors, includes "The Story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inle" from ''Watership Down'')

★ ''The Legend of Te Tuna'' (1982)

★ ''Voyage Through the Antarctic'' (1982; with Ronald Lockley), Allen Lane ISBN 0713913967

★ ''Traveller'' (1988)

★ ''The Day Gone By'' (autobiography) (1990)

★ ''Tales from Watership Down'' (collection of linked stories) (1996)

★ ''The Outlandish Knight'' (1999)

★ ''Daniel'' (2006) ISBN 1-903110-37-8 (hb) / ISBN 1-903110-36-X (special signed edition)

External links

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★ Richard Adams At Eighty

★ 1985 Audio Interview with Richard Adams - RealAudio (28 min. 55 sec.)

★ Wrecking Ball Press publishers of 'Daniel'