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Douglas Adams

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Douglas Noel Adams (March 11, 1952 - May 11, 2001), was a British comic author, most notably the author of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG).

Education and early works

Douglas was born in Cambridge and educated at Brentwood School, Essex where he became friends with Griff Rhys Jones. Adams attended St John's College, Cambridge, where in 1974 he received a BA (and later, an MA) in English literature.

A autobiography from an early edition of one of the HHGG novels provided the following description of his early career:

After graduation he spent several years contributing material to radio and television shows as well as writing, performing, and sometimes directing stage revues in London, Cambridge, and on the Edinburgh Fringe. He has also worked at various times as a hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, bodyguard, radio producer, and script editor of Doctor Who.

Douglas worked with Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame, and has a writing credit in one episode (episode 45: "Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party") of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Adams subsequently worked as a script editor of the BBC Television programme Doctor Who and wrote three serials for that series:

Between 1978 and 1984, Douglas Adams and John Lloyd together wrote the script for two half hour episodes of Doctor Snuggles called "Dr Snuggles and the Nervous River".

Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was originally a twelve-"fit" (i.e. twelve-part) radio series broadcast in the UK by BBC Radio 4 in 1978. The radio programme served as the basis for the first two novels of what eventually became a "trilogy in five parts". It was also the basis for a six-part BBC television series in 1981.

Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for a sizable period of time to ensure that So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish was completed.

Plans to make The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy into a major motion picture were in the works for more than twenty years, and were finally freed from development hell in late September 2003. Although Austin Powers director Jay Roach was at one time signed on to the project, the directorial duo Hammer and Tongs (a.k.a. Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith), got the responsibility. Shooting is scheduled to begin in spring 2004, with Robbie Stamp, Douglas' friend and business partner, as an Executive Producer, and Walt Disney Pictures as distributors. Adams once described the Hollywood process as "trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people come into the room and breathe on it."

Computer games and projects

Douglas Adams created an interactive fiction version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy together with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. Later he was also involved in creating Bureaucracy (also by Infocom, but not based on any book). Adams was also responsible for the computer game Starship Titanic, which was published in 1999 by Simon and Schuster. The accompanying book, entitled Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, was written by Terry Jones, since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the H2G2 collaborative writing project.

Environmentalism

Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of a number of endangered species. This activism culminated in the non-fiction work Last Chance to See.

Untimely death

Adams died at 49 of a heart attack while working out at his gym in Santa Barbara. He was survived by his wife Jane and daughter Polly. In May 2002, The Salmon of Doubt was published, presumably as his last book, including many short stories, essays, letters, and eleven chapters of his unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt, which was to be a new Dirk Gently novel. It also contains eulogies from Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry.

Biographies

His official biography, Wish You Were Here, written by Nick Webb and published by Headline, was published on October 6, 2003 - [1]. The book shares its name with a song by Pink Floyd, a band with whose guitarist, David Gilmour, Adams was friendly. Adams was invited to make a guest appearance at a 1994 Pink Floyd concert in London, as a birthday gift.

There are several other biographies:

Upon discovering that they were working on "Wish You Were Here" and the latter simultaneously, the authors agreed that the former would be a discussion chiefly of Adams' life and personality, the latter of his work.

Douglas Adams' works

Novels in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series

All of the above, are also available as audio books, read by Adams.

The Dirk Gently series

Other works

Tributes and honourifics

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