Richard George Adams (born 9 May, 1920) is an English novelist, author of Watership Down, Shardik, Maia, The Plague Dogs, Traveller, Tales from Watership Down and many other books. He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters during a long car journey, and they insisted he write it down. When Watership Down was finally published, after many rejections, it sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Watership Down has become a modern classic and won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1972. To date it has sold over 8 million copies and been translated into many languages, including Finnish, Hebrew and Chinese.Richard's goal is to tell a good story, ideally one so good you can't put it down! Three of his novels have been filmed so far, and he has just completed a story about a new character for very young children. Watch this space!Richard currently lives in Hampshire, England. He has six grandchildren. He has written about his childhood and youth, including the time he served in the army in World War II, in 'The Day Gone By'.