Adams, Douglas (1952-2001), was an English author who gained international popularity with his satirical science-fiction series “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The series of comic novels satirizes technology, philosophy, religion, bureaucracy, politics, and science fiction in general.
The novels follow the adventures of a group of space travelers through the perspective of an average Englishman named Arthur Dent. Dent joins the group after Earth is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic highway. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) is the first novel in the series. The other volumes that Adams wrote are The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, the Universe and Everything (1982); So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984); and Mostly Harmless (1992). A final volume in the series, And Another Thing…, was written by the Irish author Eoin Colfer and published in 2009, after Adams’s death.
The “Hitchhiker“ series began as a radio play in 1978. The stories were turned into a television series, a stage play, a series of more extended radio serials, a record album, comic books, and a computer game. A motion-picture adaptation, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was released in 2005.
Douglas Noel Adams was born in on March 11, 1952, in Cambridge, England. He graduated from Cambridge University with B.A. and M.A. degrees. Adams became a scriptwriter and producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1978. He wrote scripts for the popular science-fiction television series “Doctor Who“ from 1978 to 1980. The “Hitchhiker“ radio and television programs both began on the BBC.
In addition to his “Hitchhiker“ series, Adams wrote two novels satirizing detective stories, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988). He was a strong supporter of conservation, and with zoologist Mark Carwardine, he co-wrote Last Chance to See (1990), a nonfiction book about endangered animals. The Salmon of Doubt was published in 2002, after Adams’s death on May 11, 2001. It contains articles, essays, interviews, short stories, and 11 chapters of an unfinished novel.
