Richard Adams
Biography
Richard Adams
Richard George Adams was an English novelist who was known as the author of WATERSHIP DOWN. He studied modern history at university before serving in the British Army during World War II. Afterward he completed his studies and then joined the British Civil Service.
Adams had originally begun telling the story of WATERSHIP DOWN to his two daughters, and they insisted that he publish it as a book. It took two years to write. In 1972, after four publishers and three writers' agencies had turned down the manuscript for WATERSHIP DOWN, Rex Collings agreed to publish the work. The book gained international acclaim almost immediately.
Over the next few years WATERSHIP DOWN sold over a million copies worldwide and became a modern literary classic. Adams won both of the two most prestigious British children's book awards, one of six authors to do so: the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. In 1974, following publication of his second novel, SHARDIK, he left the Civil Service to become a full-time author. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975.
At one point, Adams served as Writer in Residence at the University of Florida and at Hollins University in Virginia. Adams was the recipient of the inaugural Whitchurch Arts Award for inspiration in January 2010, presented at the Watership Down pub in Freefolk, Hampshire.
Adams passed away on December 24, 2016 at the age of 96.
Richard Adams
