Watership Down

A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over forty years, Richard Adams’ spellbinding classic Watership Down is one of the best-loved animal stories of all time. Set in the beautiful English countryside of the Berkshire Downs, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a small band of rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a developer. Led by a stout-hearted pair of brothers, Fiver and Hazel, they leave the safety of Sandleford Warren in search of refuge, skirting danger at every turn.

‘Watership Down is stunning, compulsive reading.’ 

‘This beautifully written and intensely moving story is the work of an extraordinary imagination.’ 

'A great book. A whole world is created, perfectly real in itself, yet constituting a deep incidental comment on human affairs.' 

'A masterpiece. The best story about wild animals since The Wind in the Willows. Very funny, exciting, often moving.' 

‘An impressive, immensely readable story, held together over 400 pages by a powerful imagination that soon forbids disbelief.’ 

‘Quite marvelous... A powerful new vision of the great chain of being.’ 

'This new edition is quite spectacular.' 

‘A classic... A great book.’  

'Exquisite… a treasured keepsake for those whose original version has become tattered, and a delightful introduction to a new generation.'

'A gripping story of rebellion in a rabbit warren and the subsequent adventures of the rebels. Adams has a poetic eye and a gift for storytelling which will speak to readers of all ages for many years to come.' 

Richard Adams, the son of a country doctor, grew up in Berkshire and studied history at Worcester College, Oxford before and after the Second World War, in which he served in the First Airborne division. He originally began telling the story of Watership Down, his first book, to his two daughters to while away a long car journey to Stratford-on-Avon. They insisted he write it down, and it became a huge success on publication with people of all ages, winning both the Guardian Children's Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal. Watership Down is now considered a modern classic, and recently appeared at number thirty-seven on the Sunday Times list of bestsellers in the last forty years.

Richard Adams has written nineteen books, including Shardik and The Plague Dogs (forthcoming from Oneworld Modern Classics). He currently lives in Hampshire, England, with his wife Elizabeth, to whom he has been married for sixty-five years.

Aldo Galli was born in Lombardy, Italy, and moved to Hampshire in 2001, settling not far from Watership Down, which inspired him to begin work on the collection of oil paintings that illustrate the first full-colour edition of Richard Adams' classic novel.