Richard Adams was born in Berkshire in 1920 and studied history at Bradfield and Worcester College, Oxford. He served in the Second World War and in 1948 joined the Civil Service.

In the mid-sixties he completed his first novel, Watership Down, the story of which he originally told to his children to while away a long car journey.

Watership Down was awarded both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian award for children's fiction for 1972. 

After briefly considering careers in space travel, cookery and being a rabbit, Alex T. Smith finally decided to become an illustrator.

Soon after he graduated from art school he won second place in the Macmillan Prize for Children's Illustration and has gone on to have a stellar career, creating such favourite picture book characters as Claude from Claude in the City, Claude on Holiday and Claude Going for Gold.