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Watership Down is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in Hampshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural wild environment, with burrows, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language, proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel follows the rabbits as they escape the destruction of their warren and seek a place to establish a new home (the hill of Watership Down), encountering perils and temptations along the way. Watership Down was Richard Adams's debut novel. It was rejected by several publishers before Collings accepted the manuscript; the published book then won the annual Carnegie Medal (UK), annual Guardian Prize (UK), and other book awards. The novel was adapted into an animated feature film in 1978 and, from 1999 to 2001, an animated children's television series. In 2018, a drama of the story was made, which both aired in the UK and was made available on Netflix. Adams completed a sequel almost 25 years later, in 1996, Tales from Watership Down, constructed as a collection of 19 short stories about El-ahrairah and the rabbits of the Watership Down warren. Origin and publication history The story began as tales that Richard Adams told his young daughters Juliet and Rosamund during long car journeys. He recounted in 2007 that he "began telling the story of the rabbits ... improvised off the top of [his] head, as [they] were driving along". The daughters insisted he write it down—"they were very, very persistent". After some delay he began writing in the evenings and completed it 18 months later. The book is dedicated to the two girls. Adams's descriptions of wild rabbit behaviour were based on The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley. The two later became friends, embarking on an Antarctic tour that became the subject of a co-authored book, Voyage Through the Antarctic (A. Lane, 1982). In his autobiography, The Day Gone By, Adams wrote that he based Watership Down and the stories in it on his experiences during Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Arnhem, in 1944. The character of Hazel, the leader of the group of rabbits, was modelled on Adams's commanding officer, Major John Gifford. He gave the warrior Bigwig the personality of Captain Desmond Kavanagh, who is buried at the Airborne Cemetery in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands. Watership Down was rejected seven times before it was accepted by Rex Collings. The one-man London publisher Collings wrote to an associate, "I've just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I'm mad?" The associate did call it "a mad risk," in her obituary of Collings, to accept "a book as bizarre by an unknown writer which had been turned down by the major London publishers; but," she continued, "it was also dazzlingly brave and intuitive." Collings had little capital and could not pay an advance but "he got a review copy onto every desk in London that mattered." Adams wrote that it was Collings who gave Watership Down its title. There was a second edition in 1973. Macmillan USA, then a media giant, published the first U.S. edition in 1974 and a Dutch edition was also published that year by Het Spectrum. Plot summary Part 1: The Journey In the Sandleford warren, Fiver, a runt buck rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. He and his brother Hazel fail to convince the Threarah, their Chief Rabbit, of the need to evacuate; they then try to convince the other rabbits, but only succeed in gaining nine followers, all bucks. Captain Holly of the Sandleford Owsla (the warren's military caste) accuses the group of fomenting dissension against the Threarah and tries to stop them from leaving, but is driven off. Once out in the world, the traveling group of rabbits finds itself following the leadership of Hazel, who had been considered an unimportant member of the warren. The group travels far through dangerous territory. Bigwig and Silver, both former Owsla and the strongest rabbits among them, protect the others, helped by the ingenuity of Blackberry (the cleverest rabbit) and Hazel's good judgement. Along the way, they cross the River Enborne, and evade a badger, a dog, a crow, and a car. Hazel and Bigwig also stop three rabbits from attempting to return to the Sandleford warren. A rabbit named Cowslip invites Hazel's group to join his warren, where a farmer leaves food for the rabbits and shoots all the predators. Fiver senses death and deception in the new warren, but the rest of Hazel's group, enjoying the peace and good food, decide to ignore Fiver's warnings and the strange and evasive behaviour of the new rabbits. Later, Bigwig is caught in a snare, only surviving the ordeal thanks to Blackberry and Hazel's quick thinking. Fiver deduces the truth, and admonishes the rest in a wild lecture; the farmer feeds and protects the rabbits so he can harvest them for meat and skins, and Cowslip's rabbits only invited the guests into their warren to increase their own odds of survival. The Sandleford rabbits, badly shaken, continue on their journey. They are joined by Strawberry, a buck who deserts Cowslip's warren. Part 2: On Watership Down Fiver's visions instruct the rabbits to seek a home atop the hills. The group eventually finds and settles in a beech hanger (a wooded hill) on Watership Down. While digging the new warren, they are joined by Captain Holly and his friend Bluebell. Holly is severely wounded, and both rabbits are ill from exhaustion, having escaped both the violent destruction of the Sandleford Warren by humans and an attack by Cowslip's rabbits along the way. Holly's ordeal has left him a changed rabbit, and, after telling the others that Fiver's terrible vision has come true, he offers to join Hazel's band in whatever way they will have him. Although Watership Down is a peaceful habitat, Hazel realizes that, with all buck rabbits and no does, the warren will soon die out. With the help of their useful new friend, a black-headed gull named Kehaar, they discover a nearby warren called Efrafa, which is overcrowded. At Hazel's request, Holly leads a small embassy to Efrafa to present their request for does. Hazel and Pipkin (the smallest rabbit) decide to scout out the nearby Nuthanger Farm, where they find a rabbit hutch. Despite their uncertainty about living wild, the four hutch rabbits are willing to come to Watership. Two nights later, Hazel leads a raid on the farm, which frees two does and a buck from the hutch. Hazel is wounded in the leg by the farmer's shotgun and presumed dead; Fiver's visions prompt him and Blackberry to return and rescue Hazel. When the embassy to Efrafa returns soon after, Hazel and his rabbits learn that Efrafa is a police state run by the ferocious despot General Woundwort, who refu.... Discover the Richard Adams James Sturm Joe Sutphin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Richard Adams James Sturm Joe Sutphin books.