Watership Down science fiction writer and conservative social commentator writing in the "National Review", declared that the novel was "pleasant enough, but it has about the same intellectual firepower as Dumbo." He pilloried it further: ""Watership Down" is an adventure story, no more than that: rather a swashbuckling crude one to boot. There are virtuous rabbits and bad rabbits: if that’s allegory, "Bonanza" is an allegory." John Rowe Townsend notes that the book quickly achieved such a high popularity despite the fact that it "came out at a high price and in an unattractive jacket from a publisher who had hardly been
The Animals of Farthing Wood (book) once split nature of this first story is the way the book is split into chapters, but also into two parts, 'Escape from Danger', and 'Journey to White Deer Park'. In an interview with the "Green Action" radio programme on Paisley-based station Q96, Dann explained that the two-book version was a special issue for a children's book club operating through British primary schools – it contained some extra illustrations that were left out of the original. It was originally felt that this was the best chance the book had of success due to the resurgence of the novel "Watership Down"