Watership Down - by Richard Adams (Paperback)

About the Book

The phenomenal world seller for over 30 years returns to its original publishing home in a beautiful new edition.

Book Synopsis

Now with a new introduction by Madeline Miller, the New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles and Circe.

The 50th anniversary edition of Richard Adam's timeless classic, the tale of a band of wild rabbits struggling to hold onto their place in the world--"a classic yarn of discovery and struggle" (The New York Times).

A worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Watership Down is one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey from their native Sandleford Warren, through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, and toward the dream of a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

"Spellbinding...Marvelous...A taut tale of suspense, hot pursuit and derring-do." --Chicago Tribune

Review Quotes

"I...recall...finishing Richard Adam's Watership Down--a rousing adventure that was also about the impossible courage of the weakest and the lowest--a theme which for a young person never fails to resonate--a book with tremendous intelligence and wisdom and yes, wonder--and at the end of its last sentence, knowing with all the force of my young heart that my happiness would forever be caught up with reading. True then and true now."--Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"All books should end the way Watership Down ends, with one hundred pages of Ahhhhh."--Madeline Miller, author of Circe

"Spellbinding...Marvelous...A taut tale of suspense, hot pursuit and derring-do."--Chicago Tribune

"Marvelous... powerful."--The New York Times Book Review-- "Chicago Tribune"

About the Author

Richard Adams (1920-2016) was educated at Bradfield College and Worcester College, Oxford. He served in the Second World War and in 1948 joined the civil service. In the mid-1960s he completed his first novel, Watership Down, for which he struggled for several years to find a publisher. It was eventually awarded both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for children's fiction for 1972. He would go on to publish several more books, including Shardik, Tales from Watership Down, Maia, The Plague Dogs, and The Girl in a Swing.

Madeline Miller is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles, which won the Orange Women's Prize for Fiction 2012, and Circe, which was short-listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019. Her books have been translated into over thirty-two languages.