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"I announce with trembling pleasure the appearance of a great story."

In 1972, an unknown British novelist named Richard Adams published his debut novel with a rather misleading title, Watership Down. After being rejected 13 times by various publisher it was finally accepted by Rex Collings, a one-man company which worked on a shoestring and couldn't pay Adams any advance, but had important connections in the London literary scene and made sure that it was read by everyone who mattered. Rex Collings believed in Watership Down; Adams credits him as the person who helped give the book its title (apparently he thought that Hazel & Fiver didn't do it justice). Everything seemed to suggest that the whole affair would be an abject failure. Watership Down was a debut work by an unknown novelist, published at a high price by a small fry who could afford only a plain dust jacket. Collings published his books in small print runs, which were then sold in specialist bookshops with little or no publicity, and the initial print run of Watership Down amounted to just 2000 copies. But this seemingly ugly duckling soon transformed into a beautiful swan; It sold quickly both to children and adults. Britain fell in love with Watership Down, and with time so did the whole world. Now tourists from as far as Japan journeying to Richard Adam's homeland to see the areas which inspired their favorite book. The quotation which opens this review comes from London's The Times, where the reviewer was barely able to contain his enthusiasm.

Watership Down originally began as a serial bedtime story told by Richard Adams to his two little girls, Juliet and Rosamund. Adams later expanded it during long car journeys that he took with the girls to Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of the world's most famous bard. The story was improvised, but based on Adams's real life experience in the British Army. Adams served as a lieutenant in the 250 Company of the 1st Airborne Division, and named the Battle of Arnhem as inspiration, and the officers he served with as models for Hazel, Bigwig and other rabbits of Watership Down. When the story was finished, young Juliet said "you ought to write it down daddy, it's too good to waste!". Although Adams initially resisted, being busy with work in the Civil Service, she and her sister were very persistent in urging him to write it as a book until he finally surrendered, and then urged him to get it published. Watership Down is rightfully dedicated to these two girls, who were so generous as to make sure that their dad would share the story they loved with the whole world.

Watership Down was initially rejected on the grounds that older children wouldn't like it, since it was about rabbits - which they thought was good for babies, and younger children wouldn't like it because it was written in too adult a style. Before Rex Collings decided to give it a try, Richard Adams experienced plenty of frustration with explaining that he didn't even had children in mind and that Watership Down was really about Hazel & Fiver and their rabbits, a book which anyone, young or old, could buy and enjoy, and that the age group of his audience could roughly be contained between 8 and 88. It is interesting to note that Watership Down is sold also as a children's book only in the UK - everywhere else in the world it's sold purely as a mainstream title for adults.

"El-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince With A Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed."

Rabbits are prey animals, and in the wilderness almost everything will try to capture and eat them; predators include foxes, dogs, hawks, racoons, owls, snakes - and humans. Luckily for them, nature has provided the rabbit with several features allowing for survival against these odds. Rabbits have eyes on both sides of their heads which give them nearly panoramic vision, allowing for detecting predators from all directions - even from behind. They can hear and smell exceptionally well, and are able to turn their ears to better capture the sounds they're listening to. Since making noises is a dead giveaway of their position, rabbits communicate with each other quietly, with the position of their ears being an important part of the rabbit language.

As useful as these may be, rabbits cannot survive on sight, smell and hearing alone. And this is why nature has endowed the rabbit with its best feature - ability to achieve amazing speed very quickly. Most of their mass consists of muscle, and their strength is focused in their long hind legs - they allow them to leap as high as one meter and as far as three. An average rabbit can run between 25 to 40 miles per hour, make quick turns and even turn directions while in the air, leaving other animals in the dust.

However, even this magnificent speed is not enough to protect the rabbit. Due to their low skeletal mass rabbits are very delicate and prone to injury, and can easily break their own bones if they struggle. If they kick to hard, they can even break their own backs. Stress can have a long lasting effect on a rabbit, even after its source is removed - and fear can cause a heart attack, even if the threat is not real. Their physical and psychological fragility and proneness to being preyed upon made the rabbit need a safe place to live. Some species live above ground, but the best know one - the European rabbit - digs burrows underground, and connects them into a network which is called a warren. In these warrens rabbits find safe shelter from their predators and harsh weather, store food and have their young. When they're not feeding, European rabbits spend most of their time underground.

The rabbits of Watership Down are very much like ordinary rabbits - Richard Adams has studied Ronald Lockley The Private Life of the Rabbit - but at the same time they're human like, with each having a distinct personality and different characteristics. While Adams clearly anthropomorphizes his bunnies, he doesn't go the easy way of making them humans in bunny suits. His rabbits' understanding of the world around them is carefully limited to make them lapine enough - men are identified by the "white sticks" they leave behind (almost every human character in the novel smokes - it were the 70's). human inventions are understood through the mind of a rabbit, and the challenges they experience on their way are also of the type which would trouble one. All of it works splendidly though, and the language that the rabbits developed to describe everything is a small joy to see.

Among many things which I found lovable and admirable in the rabbit protagonists of Watership Down is their love of stories. Rabbits love gathering together and listening to the tales of the legendary rabbit hero, their beloved El-ahrairah. El-ahrairah was a rabbit trickster and the legendary Prince of the Forest, who lived long before Hazel, Fiver and the rest of all rabbits. Together with his fellow rascal, Rabscutle, El-ahrairah uses his ample wits to commit plenty of mischief: getting lettuce out of an impenetrable fortress, outsmarting bigger and stronger creatures to achieve his goals. El-ahrairah is fast, cunning and proud, but he's also honorable and loyal to his people. The stories of El-ahrairah and his adventures are sprinkled throughout the main narrative, and serve as inspiration and entertainment for the rabbits, and as a way to find courage in hard times.

A reviewer in the New Statesman praised Richard Adams for writing a big, tense, picaresque story; these three adjectives probably best describe Watership Down. People have seen in it a riff on The Oddysey, an allegory for human struggle against totalitarian oppression, fascism, the Cold War...but at its heart it is a wonderful story about a group of rabbits searching for a new home, and their efforts at establishing a warren. They provide for interesting protagonists, and as they journey goes on so do their respective roles develop. These are to a degree archetypal, but Richard Adams is careful to make sure that each rabbit retains its individual characteristics and grow as the story progresses. Relations between the characters are not black and white, as in many books for children - even though the villain figure is portrayed with obvious negativity Adams makes an effort to show why it would be influential and admired by many other rabbits, all the way to the very end. Occasionally Adams will do some authorial intrusion and explain the rabbit habits of his protagonists, but he did write this book based on the stories he told their kids, and they probably asked many questions concerning these matters - as most kids would. It's not a big problem at all and can actually be seen a nice reminded about the roots of Watership Down.

It feels as if I have been writing this review for a very long time and have barely said anything I wanted to say. This happens when I encounter something which moves me and inspires me, and which stays with me and makes me experience and think and feel my humanity by doing so. Curiously, these feelings have been aroused by a book about a group of talking rabbits. But it works! By God, people, it works. Since it's summer I started to enjoy reading in a park near my home, just sitting on a bench away from the main lane in the quiet and the shade. This was where I started and finished Watership Down, and after I cleaned my eyes I wanted to immediately begin it all over again. I can't remember the last time that happened, and it's a great feeling. I can't wait to run down this burrow again and see what else I'll find there.Praise be to Richard Adams for being a wonderful father to his two little girls and a great writer who shared his beautiful book with us. 5 stars.

Be sure not to miss , which made me like and appreciate Watership Down even more and want to seek out all his other works. It was filmed in November 2012 at Whitchurch Arts Show in the UK, where he's rocking the house at the age of 92. What a wonderful and lovable man! May he live a thousand years.