

This interview was first published on 8 November 2014. Richard Adams, the creator of Watership Down, has now died at the age of 96

It’s a silly way of putting it,” says Richard Adams, “but if I had known earlier how frightfully well I could write, I’d have started earlier.” The genesis of Watership Down is now almost as familiar as the novel itself. In the late Sixties a career civil servant began entertaining his two daughters on the school run with vibrant stories about a warren of rabbits. They encouraged him to write them down and eventually he gave in – only for every publisher in London to reject the novel.

“I couldn’t bear to take the copy away from the publisher,” Adams recalls. “My wife Elizabeth used to go and collect the rejected stuff.” He remembers with startling clarity the lunch when his fortunes turned. “As soon as we sat down he said, 'I like your book and I’d like to publish it.’ This blew a trumpet in my heart.”