Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Hitchhiker's began on radio, and developed into a "trilogy" of five books (which sold more than fifteen million copies during his lifetime) as well as a television series, a towel, a comic book series, a computer game and a feature film that was completed after Adams' death. The series has also been adapted for live theatre using various scripts; the earliest such productions used material newly written by Adams. He was known to some fans as Bop Ad (after his illegible signature), or by his initials "DNA".
In addition to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wrote or co-wrote three stories of the science fiction television series Doctor Who and served as Script Editor during the seventeenth season. His other written works include the Dirk Gently novels, and co-author credits on two Liff...
Created by dipity on Jan 23, 2008
Last updated: 03/05/10 at 11:02 PM
Douglas Adams died in Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara County
The Salmon of Doubt (full title: The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time) is a posthumous collection of previously uncollected material by Douglas Adams, published in 2001. English editions of the book were published in the USA and UK in May 2002, exactly one year after the author's death. It consists largely of a compilation of essays, most of which have a technological edge, but its major selling point is the inclusion of the incomplete novel on which Adams was working when he died (and from which the collection gets its title, a reference to the Celtic myth of the Salmon of Wisdom). In a 1998 interview with Matt Newsome, Adams commented as to whether The Salmon of Doubt was going to be a Dirk Gently book or a continuation of the Hitchhiker's Guide series: The actual manuscript of the proposed novel is extremely short and only gives a glimpse of what The Salmon of Doubt would have been. It is composed of the best content out of several drafts (as were many of Adams...
Mostly Harmless is a novel by Douglas Adams and the fifth book of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It is described on the cover of the first editions as the "Fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named 'Hitchhiker's Trilogy'". The title derives from a joke early in the series, when Arthur Dent discovers that the entry for Earth in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy consists, in its entirety, of the word "Harmless." His friend Ford Prefect, a contributor to the Guide, assures him that the next edition will contain the article on Earth that Ford has spent the last 15 years researching—somewhat cut due to space restrictions, but still an improvement. The revised article, he eventually admits, will simply read "Mostly harmless." The events in Mostly Harmless occur some time after the events in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Notable changes are the absence of Fenchurch,who appeared in the previous book. The plot revolves around the concept of parallel...,
The book Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine was first published in 1990, as a companion to the BBC radio series of the same name. The theme of documentary was to feature animal species which were endangered or threatened with extinction. The Observer Colour Magazine initiated moves in 1985 to send a zoologist, Mark Carwardine, and a writer, Douglas Adams, to Madagascar, to search for the aye-aye, a nearly extinct lemur. Later this developed into several journeys to find various species, including the Komodo dragon on the island of Komodo in Indonesia, gorillas and white rhinoceroses in Zaire, Kakapos in New Zealand, the Yangtze River Dolphin in China, Rodrigues fruit bats (megabat) on the island of Rodrigues, and various other species in these locations. Many of these excursions became the basis for the BBC Radio 4 series of the same name. Many of the excursions were written into the companion book, though not all, allegedly due to Douglas' notorious writing...
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is a 1988 humorous fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams. It is the second book by Adams featuring private detective Dirk Gently, the first being Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The novel's title is a phrase which appeared in Adams's earlier novel Life, the Universe and Everything, but the novels are not otherwise related.The plot of the novel is complicated and extremely close attention must be paid to the text for a complete understanding. Seemingly minor events early on play key roles later in the book, and fully understanding the plot is akin to deciphering a puzzle. Many readers complain that the novel ends suddenly and summarily, with most of the plot's loose ends being tied up in several short closing chapters.Dirk Gently, who calls himself a "holistic detective", has happened upon what he thinks is a rather comfortable situation. A ridiculously wealthy man in the record industry has retained him, spinning a ludicrous story about...,
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a novel by Douglas Adams. It is described on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic". Like many of Adams' stories, its plot defies easy encapsulation. The book was followed by a sequel (and a half), The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, although the only recurring major characters are Gently himself, Janice Pearce and Sergeant Gilks. Intended as a third in the series, Adams began to write The Salmon of Doubt. Though, after writing only a few chapters, he admitted that it was not working. He felt that the ideas in the new book were more a Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy thing, and decided that he may well write yet another HGTTG book with them in. Unfortunately, Adams passed away before he could write it. The unfinished Salmon of Doubt has been published, along with numerous other short stories and writings found on Adam's Mac. A BBC Radio adaptation starring Harry Enfield is to...
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984, ISBN 0-345-39183-7) is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route, as described in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The phrase has since been adopted by some science fiction fans as a humorous way to say "goodbye" and a song of the same name was featured in the 2005 film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The book begins with Arthur Dent, hitch-hiking randomly through the galaxy, arriving at (as the book's blurb describes it) "the last place in the Universe in which he would expect to find anything at all, but which 3,976,000,000 people will find oddly familiar" - namely Earth, which was demolished at the beginning of the first book in the series. After getting dropped off on the planet by a spaceship in the middle of a...,
Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. The story was originally outlined by Adams as Doctor Who and the Krikketmen to be a Tom Baker Doctor Who television six-part story, but was rejected by the BBC. It was later considered as a plotline for the second series of the Hitchhiker's TV series, which was never commissioned. A radio adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything was recorded in 2003 under the guidance of Dirk Maggs, starring the surviving members of the cast of the original Hitchhiker's radio series. Adams himself, at his own suggestion, makes a cameo appearance; due to his death before production began on the series, this was achieved by sampling his character's dialogue from an audio book of the novel read by Adams that was published in the 1990s. The radio adaptation...,
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980, ISBN 0-345-39181-0) is the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. It was originally published by Pan Books as a paperback. It takes its name from Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, one of the settings of the book. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe continues the story from where The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ended. Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox have just left the planet Magrathea when they are attacked by a Vogon ship. They find they are unable to use the Improbability Drive to escape, as Arthur has accidentally jammed the computer with a difficult enquiry about a cup of tea. Luckily, an ancestor of Zaphod's, Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth saves them. Zaphod and Marvin vanish, only to turn up at the offices of the Guide on Ursa Minor Beta. They are looking for Zarniwoop, who has gone on an intergalactic cruise in his...,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979, ISBN 0-330-25864-8) is the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name. The novel was first published in London in October 1979. The novel takes its name from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a fictional guide book for hitchhikers (based on the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe) written in the form of an encyclopedia. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the most popular known reference work in the Milky Way, for two reasons: it is inexpensive, and it has the words Don't Panic written on it in large, friendly letters on its cover. It is a galactic bestseller everywhere except on the backward planet Earth, where they still think digital watches are "a pretty neat idea." Ford Prefect is a field correspondent for the Guide stationed on Earth and fully aware that the Guide...,
Graduated from St John's College, Cambridge with a B.A. in English Literature
Started study of Array at St John's College, Cambridge
Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom
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