Richard Adams (1920-2016)

Author Richard Adams, 96, died December 24, 2016. Adams is best known for his classic animal fantasy Watership Down (1972), about the secret (and magical) lives of rabbits. His other titles of genre interest include Shardik (1975), The Plague Dogs (1978), and collection Tales from Watership Down (1996).

Richard George Adams was born May 9, 1920 in Newbury, Berkshire, England. He studed at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a BA in modern history in 1948, and a master’s in 1953; his college career was interrupted by a stint in the British Army from 1940-45. He married Barbara Elizabeth Acland in 1949, and they had two daughters. He worked for the government in various capacities until becoming a full-time writer in 1974. He won both a Carnegie Medal and a Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for Watership Down, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Winchester in 2015. He is survived by his wife, daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.