The author of literary classic Watership Down Richard Adams died on Tuesday, BBC reported. His daughter confirmed the news. Adams was 96 years old and also wrote Shardik and The Plague Dogs.

His first book, published in 1972, was made into a film in 1978 and is about a group of rabbits, who possessed their own language and culture, as they sought to establish a home in a new place called Watership Down. The novel had been rejected by publishers several times but went on to become one of the bestselling children’s books of all time.

Adams had said he had begun telling his daughters the story one day, as he drove them to school. His children then told him that the tale was “too good to waste, Daddy, you ought to write that down”.