Richard Adams (author)
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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.
[edit] Life and work
Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire. He served in the British Army from 1940 until1946, 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 the Carnegie Medal 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.
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.
[edit] Books
- Watership Down (1972)
- Beklan Empire
- Nature Through the Seasons (1975)
- The Tyger Voyage (1976)
- The Plague Dogs (1977)
- The Adventures & Brave Deeds Of The Ship's Cat On The Spanish Maine: Together With The Most Lamentable Losse Of The Alcestis & Triumphant Firing Of The Port Of Chagres (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 R.M Lockley)
- Traveller (1988)
- The Day Gone By (autobiography) (1990)
- Tales from Watership Down (collection of linked stories) (1996)
- The Outlandish Knight (1999)
- Daniel (2006)
[edit] External links
- Richard Adams at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Richard Adams at the Internet Book List
- Richard Adams at the Internet Book Database of Fiction
- Richard Adams At Eighty
- 1985 Audio Interview with Richard Adams - RealAudio (28 min. 55 sec.)
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