Richard Adams

Richard Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire, England, in 1920. He served in the British Army from 1940 through 1946, during World War II. In 1948 Adams received a mater's degree from Worcester College at Oxford University. He worked as a civil servant from 1948 to 1974, and since 1974 has been a fulltime author.

Adams wrote his first novel, Watership Down, while still a civil servant in 1972. The novel won him the Carnegie Medal and was a large success in England, but did not bring him true fame until it was widely heralded in the United States. Adams has written several other novels, including Shardik (1974), The Plague Dogs (1977), and Traveller (1988). In 1991, he published an autobiography, The Day Gone By, and five years later published the sequel to Watership Down, entitled Tales From Watership Down (1996). Watership Down has remained Adams's most successful novel, popular with both adults and children. Although several of his other books have sold well, none of them has ever come close to reaching the critical acclaim of Watership Down. Adams is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.

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©Steven Jeffery / IBList.com, 2006

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