Watership Down
#2224.08 of 664 ranked universes · full ranking
Books 1 book Status Complete 1972 Reading commitment Low Richard Adams Last reviewed 2026-08-27
Overview
A warren of rabbits flees the destruction of their home and searches for a new one, guided partly by a young rabbit's premonitions and partly by their own inner mythology: stories of their trickster folk hero, El-ahrairah, told and retold throughout the journey. Richard Adams grounds the story in closely observed rabbit behavior while giving the warren its own fully realized language, social structure, and oral tradition.
Mythic fantasy · For All ages
Core Canon: Reading Order (1 work) counts toward ranking
Watership Down Richard Adams
| Work | Year | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Watership Down | 1972 | core | 4.08 (474,284 ratings) |
Richard Adams's own novel, the whole of the original narrative.
Library / Expanded (1 work)
Tales from Watership Down (1996) ; A later collection of short stories set in the same warren, published 24 years after the original novel.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Watership Down? Watership Down's Core Canon is 1 book, plus 1 more in the wider Library/Expanded material.
- Is Watership Down finished? Complete (1972).
- How much reading does Watership Down take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book · ~478 pages).
- How is Watership Down ranked? #222 of 664 ranked universes on this site, based on 474,284 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #222?
Ranked #222 of 664 ranked universes.
- Average reader rating of 4.08 across 1 core book.
- Backed by 474k reader ratings.
- Less than 0.01 behind #221, Empire of the Wolf (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 1 book · Complete · 474k ratings · Ranks #222 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment mythic fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this universe.
You might also like
Suggestions computed from what Watership Down and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- The Once and Future King Mythic fantasy / Comic fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 4.06
- Zamonia Comic fantasy / Mythic fantasy · Ongoing · Medium commitment · 4.29
- Elements of Cadence Romantasy / Mythic fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 4.15
- Moribito Mythic fantasy · Ongoing · Low commitment · 4.11
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.08 across 474,284 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Watership Down admitted; Core Canon = the original 1972 novel accepted 2026-08-27
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-08-27
Rule: Core Canon is the original 1972 novel. Expanded Canon is the 1996 short-story collection Tales from Watership Down, written a quarter-century later as supplementary folklore rather than a continuation of the main plot.