Watership Down

by Richard Adams

Book Overview

Now with a new introduction by Madeline Miller, the New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles and Circe.

The 50th anniversary edition of Richard Adam's timeless classic, the tale of a band of wild rabbits struggling to hold onto their place in the world--"a classic yarn of discovery and struggle" (The New York Times).

A worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Watership...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743277708
• ISBN13: 9780743277709
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

My favorite classic

The book came in quick, and in great condition! One of my favorite classic books. I got the movie on VHS at a yardsale which prompted wanting to read it too, and similar books

My favorite Book

Amazing story, characters, and beautiful story. The ending made me cry!

Pages falling out

I just received the book and there are pages falling out of the middle.

Stunning

Well written, funny, and poignant. Surprised by how much I loved this novel

A classic that will change your life.

A classic with a contemporary feel. Superbly written with complex characters and plot.

My #1 Favorite Book of all Time!

Richard Adams paints a beautiful portrait with his excellent story telling! Watership Down is my all time favorite book and I highly recommend it!

This is one of my top four favorites of animal-talking books! Rates right up there with Richard Ada

Watership Down

Yes, there is a small, fluffy rabbit on the cover. Yes, this book five hundred page long fantasy about bunnies. But it's also about survival against all odds, sacrifices and quick-thinking, and the struggle to create a thing called `home'. Richard Adams, with the help of The Private life of the Rabbit by rabbit expert R. M. Lockley, has created a flawless world of rabbits and their many enemies compete with a religion and language of the rabbits. One day, Hazel and his prophetic but undersized brother, Fiver, are hopping through the fields near their crowded warren, Fiver has a vision of their home destroyed and insists that they see their leader and tell him that they must abandon their burrow and seek another. He, of course, doesn't listen, so the two create a motley band of travelers, including Bigwig, the fierce and powerful warrior, Blackberry the brilliant and thoughtful, Dandelion, the storyteller, and Pipkin, the loyal but totally useless. Their trials are many (including rabbits who live in the wild, but are being trapped and fed by humans), but they somehow survive and find the ideal place for a warren, and discover the captain of the owsla (the class of strong male rabbits in a warren) from their old warren, who tells of the horrible destruction of the warren; the only problem with the new warren is that there are no female rabbits. So the rabbit refugees manage to rescue does from a horribly overcrowded and cruel warren, and a farm (Hazel, now the undisputed leader, gets shot in the leg in the process), and so their quest is completed and their warren created. Set in modern-day England's forests and fields, Watership Down is, in my opinion, absolutely beautiful and highly reccomended.

The modern classic children's book that is too good for kids

When I went off for my first semester of college my father gave me $100 with which to buy textbooks, which certainly dates me and will once again astound my own college aged children as to what life was like in the last century. After buying everything for my classes I had enough money left over to buy a hard cover copy of "Watership Down" by Richard Adams for $6.95, which for people who love books is certainly a great way of representing the ravages of inflation over the years. I decided to read a chapter of "Watership Down" each night before going to bed, thereby marking the beginning of my obsession with reading a chapter of something each day that has nothing to do with school. When my dorm roommate became as hooked on the story as much as I was he and I would read chapters aloud. Fifty days I got to the book's epilogue with the same sort of sadness that it was all over that I experienced getting to the end of the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Living in the Sandleford Warren with its Chief Rabbit and Owsla maintaining a comfortable social order, Hazel and his little brother Fiver are content enough. But Fiver has the gift of prophecy, and when he warns that the warren has to be abandoned right away or they are all going to die, Hazel and a small circle of friends believe him and leave despite the fact that have no idea where they are going. Fiver envisions a great high place where they can be happy and safe, but there are a series of imposing obstacles to overcome, from not only humans and predators, but other wild rabbits as well. Consequently the basic story of "Watership Down" is the ancient quest for home, although in this case it is a new home that represents a wild rabbit's idea of utopia. The greatness of "Watership Down" rests on the sense of realism that Adams brings to his story wild rabbits. Adams studied Lapine life in R. M. Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit" in order to keep his rabbits real. But beyond the way rabbits live in nature Adams provides them with a history and a culture, represented not only in the stories they tell of El-ahrairah (the Prince with a Thousand Enemies), but their beliefs in Frith the lord sun, and their simple games such as bob-stones. When confronted with sticky situations they are able to use their ingenuity to come up with surprising solutions that are still within the realm of possibility for real rabbits. I always liked the way Hazel, Blackberry and the others have to work out these puzzles, straining for a leap of intuition and cognitive insight that seems just beyond the reach of their relatively simple minds. So while these rabbits are capable of doing more than others of their kind, Adams keeps their efforts remarkable rather than magical. We also pick up a few choice words from the language of the rabbits (e.g., "silflay" is to go above ground to feed, "homba is a fox), which ends up paying off with one of my favorite moments in the book when Bigway utters a simple but effecti

A modern classic children's story that is too good for kids

When I went off for my first semester of college my father gave me $100 with which to buy textbooks, which certainly dates me. After buying everything for my classes I had enough money left over to buy a hard cover copy of "Watership Down" by Richard Adams for $6.95, which for people who love books is certainly a great way of representing the ravages of inflation over the years. I decided to read a chapter of "Watership Down" each night before going to bed, thereby marking the beginning of my obsession with reading a chapter of something each day that has nothing to do with school. When my dorm roommate became as hooked on the story as much as I was he and I would read chapters aloud. Fifty days I got to the book's epilogue with the same sort of sadness that it was all over that I experienced getting to the end of the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Living in the Sandleford Warren with its Chief Rabbit and Owsla maintaining a comfortable social order, Hazel and his little brother Fiver are content enough. But Fiver has the gift of prophecy, and when he warns that the warren has to be abandoned right away or they are all going to die, Hazel and a small circle of friends believe him and leave despite the fact that have no idea where they are going. Fiver envisions a great high place where they can be happy and safe, but there are a series of imposing obstacles to overcome, from not only humans and predators, but other wild rabbits as well. Consequently the basic story of "Watership Down" is the ancient quest for home, although in this case it is a new home that represents a wild rabbit's idea of utopia. The greatness of "Watership Down" rests on the sense of realism that Adams brings to his story wild rabbits. Adams studied Lapine life in R. M. Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit" in order to keep his rabbits real. But beyond the way rabbits live in nature Adams provides them with a history and a culture, represented not only in the stories they tell of El-ahrairah (the Prince with a Thousand Enemies), but their beliefs in Frith the lord sun, and their simple games such as bob-stones. When confronted with sticky situations they are able to use their ingenuity to come up with surprising solutions that are still within the realm of possibility for real rabbits. I always liked the way Hazel, Blackberry and the others have to work out these puzzles, straining for a leap of intuition and cognitive insight that seems just beyond the reach of their relatively simple minds. So while these rabbits are capable of doing more than others of their kind, Adams keeps their efforts remarkable rather than magical. We also pick up a few choice words from the language of the rabbits (e.g., "silflay" is to go above ground to feed, "homba is a fox), which ends up paying off with one of my favorite moments in the book when Bigway utters a simple but effective curse. The lesson of the story is clearly that bigger does not mean better, for Hazel i

Imaginative, cute story!

This book is among my favorites. The rabbits are well decribed and personified, yet not to a point that is unimaginable. You feel sadness and anger at some points, and happiness, too. The journey the rabbits make is very perilous, and once you begin reading the end chapters, you'll find the book hard to put down, even though it was hard to put down in the first place! I would not recommend this book for children younger than 11, because of a few curses, and the fact the book is very large. Watership Down is a great book that any animal lover must read!

I ain't no Siskel --This is the best darn book I ever read!

A lot of reviewers, teachers, and other people that like to make themselves sound intellectually mature, would tell you that in order to enjoy Watership Down, or any other book for that matter, is to read deep meanings in to every aspect of the book. Please, do yourself a favor and don't torture yourself in this way. Although it has all the characteristics of a great book, a modern day classic even, and could be full of sybolism and irony, I feel that it is best enjoyed by taking it for what it is: A great story about a group of rabbit's adventure, failure, success, self-discovery, and their long, journey. The story is set in the English countryside, with great descriptions of the surroundings as well as the rabbits and their lifestyle. It is told from a rabbits point of view, but one that knows human behavior as well, and somehow Adams makes the whole thing realistic. The book is about a group of rabbits that decide to leave their home warren after Fiver, a sort of psychic rabbit, tells them that danger is on the way. And so they begin a voyage that will change their lives forever. Along the way theyt encounter an evil warren, crows, a fox, rivers, a rabbit farm, and countless other dangers. Their final destination is a sort of "rabbit heaven," a beautiful, safe, secure piece of l;and known as Watership Down. Also included in the book is a whole new language that Adams somehow brings the reader to understand, and tales of how Frith, the sun god, was so impressed with El-Arairah (a folk hero) that he granted him wonderful boons. When I was first told of the book I thought it would be a cute, kids book. I was completely wrong. This is a mature book that would probably be best suited for middle-school students through adults. I would recommend this book to anyone that isn't afraid to spend a little time, and become fully engrossed in a wonderful tale.