Richard Adams isn't your typical English classic author - although he was born in the heart of the Southern English countryside - in Newbury, Berkshire in 1920, he studied Modern History at Oxford University between 1933 and 1938, and went on to join the British Army during World War II, in 1940 and served there until. 1946.  He has a strong passion for animal rights and the environment, and Watership Down was his main way of expressing his feelings and views.

Adams returned to Oxford after the war and pursued a Bachelor and Master of Arts degree.  He worked for the UK Government as an Assistant Secretary for the Department of Agriculture. It was only following the publication of his second novel Shardik in 1974, did he become a full-time author.

Watership Down first began as stories that Adams told to his daughters Rosamund and Juliet on long trips. They both insisted he publish the collection - it took two years to write, and was rejected by thirteen publishers - a record for a now-bestselling author. When it was finally published in 1972, it became an instant classic, selling over a million copies in record time both in the UK and the USA, and won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in the same year. To date, it has sold over 50 million copies world-wide, and is Penguin Book's best selling book of all time.

In 1974, Adams pbulished his Shardik novel, a gripping fantasy following the story of a hunter pursuing Shardik, a great bear believed to embody the Power of God.  The story has some intensely spiritual elements, and features such themes as atonement, the innate potential and strength within children, and the responsiblity of adults to protect and nurture children, so that they might contribute to a better and brighter future for the good of all.  In 1984, Maia - a prequel novel set in the same world was released.

In 1977, another highly-acclaimed novel was released, The Plague Dogs, which followed two dogs under-going animal experimentation at a Government research facility in England.
The novel was Adam's response and criticism of the growing vivisection industry.  

In 1978, the animated motion picture of Watership Down was released.  Several years in the making, and under the helm of Martin Rosen, the film was highly-anticipated in the UK, and was on release for a record time of over 8 months, and became one of the highest-grossing films of 1979.  The film featured a special song written by Mike Batt, Bright Eyes which was performed by Art Garfunkel.  It became a Number One hit immediately on it's single release, and stayed at the top of the UK Charts for 6 weeks, in addition to becoming the best-selling single of the year.  The impact of Watership Down the movie, could be seen everywhere - it was parodied on TV shows, shops and business took advantage of the image of rabbits, there were lengthy queues outside many movie theatres, and animal rights activists & environmentalists were spurned on by the images and allegories contained in the novel and the film.

In 1982, Adams became President of the RSPCA - The Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the UK's national humane society.  In 1983, he stood in the UK General Elections as an Independent Conservative, on a platform of anti-foxhunting.

Presently, Richard Adams lives with his wife Elizabeth in Whitchurch, Hampshire, not far from Watership Down and the centre of the stories.