It becomes a discussion between two real-life naturalists, Sir Peter Scott and Ronald Lockley, the latter Adams’s friend. His third novel, The Plague Dogs, about two dogs escaping from a government research facility and trying to evade recapture, contains yet more strong characters and well-paced action, but is rather let down by its ending. It is, however, extremely well written and confirmed that Adams was no one-hit wonder. No book could ever hope to be as successful as Watership Down, and Shardik – its title the name of a huge bear – is a very different kind of story. The phrase “capturing the zeitgeist” might have been invented for it.Īfter the publication of his second novel, Shardik, Adams gave up his career as a civil servant to become a full-time writer. It propelled Adams into the limelight like few other authors. Here was a book – over 400 pages long – read by young and old alike. It’s easy to forget what a phenomenon Watership Down was at the time. The novel won immediate recognition with the Guardian children’s fiction prize and the Carnegie medal. The book looked decidedly amateurish but went on to be snapped up by Penguin, who took the then extremely unusual step of publishing it under both the Puffin and Penguin imprints in other words, for children and adults.
What many people may be unaware of is that Watership Down was first published, at the end of 1972, by one-man publishing outfit Rex Collings, well before the days of Kickstarter, print on demand or digital downloads.
Since its publication, we’ve had William Horwood’s moles in Duncton Wood, and attempts at similar approaches with deer and crows and the like, but none has achieved quite what Adams did with rabbits. There is something unique about the novel, so multi-layered and complete. But those of us who read and loved Adams’s original book will be transported to quite a different place: a world of rabbits with their own traditions, customs and legends, but not outwardly anthropomorphic (no waistcoats, pocket watches or two-legged walking here). To others, images of the somewhat lacklustre animated 1978 film adaptation – for which Bright Eyes was the theme tune – may come to mind. No matter what he did before or since, he will forever be associated with Watership Down.įor some, Watership Down will trigger the earworm Bright Eyes, as written and composed by Mike Batt (of Wombles fame) and sung by Art Garfunkel. When someone once told Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, that he hadn’t written anything as good since, Heller famously replied: “Who has?” Similarly, if JK Rowling were to appear on stage riding a dragon that spewed molten gold and breathed fire, the majority of the audience would likely mutter: “Not as good as Harry Potter.” And so to Richard Adams, who died on Christmas Eve.
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