The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy" by Douglas Adams (with the sixth written by Eoin Colfer). The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams' radio series of the same name. The novel was first published in London on 12 October 1979.[2]  It sold 250,000 copies in the first three months.[3]

The namesake of the novel is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a fictional guide book for hitchhikers (inspired by theHitch-hiker's Guide to Europe) written in the form of an encyclopedia.



Contents
[hide]  *1 Plot summary  ==Plot summary[ edit] == The book begins with contractors arriving at Arthur Dent's house. They wish to demolish his house in order to build a bypass. Arthur's best friend, Ford Prefect, arrives, warning him of the end of the world. The two head to a bar, where the locals question Ford's knowledge of the Apocalypse. An alien race, known as Vogons, show up to demolish the planet, and Arthur and Ford manage to get on their ship just before Earth is demolished, where they are forced to listen to Vogon poetry as punishment. Arthur tries to say it is beautiful. Arthur and Ford are then placed into an airlock, and jetisonned into space, only to be rescued by Zaphod's ship, the Heart of Gold. Zaphod is the cousin of Ford, President of the galaxy, and accompanied by a depressed robot named Marvin and a woman by the name of Trillian. The five embark on a journey to find the legendary planet known as Magrathea, known for selling luxury planets. Once there, they meet a computer named Deep Thought, who states the ultimate answer to everything is the number 42. Earth 2 is constructed, and the question for Deep Thought's answer is implanted in Arthur's brain. Trillian's mice offer to buy Arthur's brain for it, leading to a fight when he declines. Zaphod saves Arthur when the brain is about to be removed, and the group of 5 decided to go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. ==Illustrated edition[ edit] == The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a specially designed book made in 1994. It was first printed in the United Kingdom by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and in the United States by Harmony Books (who sold it for $42.00). It is an oversized book, and came in silver-foil "holographic" covers in both the UK and US markets. It features the first appearance of the 42 Puzzle, designed by Adams himself, a photograph of Adams and his literary agent Ed Victor as the two space cops, and many other designs by Kevin Davies, who has participated in many Hitchhiker's related projects since the stage productions in the late 1970s. Davies himself appears as Prosser. This edition is out of print – Adams bought up many remainder copies and sold them, autographed, on his website. ==Audiobook adaptations[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. The first was an abridged edition (ISBN 0-671-62964-6), recorded in the mid-1980s by Stephen Moore, best known for playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the radio series, LP adaptations and in the TV series. In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition for Dove Audiobooks (ISBN 1-55800-273-1), later re-released by New Millennium Audio (ISBN 1-59007-257-X) in the United States and available from BBC Audiobooks in the United Kingdom. Also by arrangement with Dove, ISIS Publishing Ltd produced a numbered exclusive edition signed by Douglas Adams (ISBN 1-85695-028-X) in 1994.To tie-in with the 2005 film, actor Stephen Fry, the film's voice of the Guide, recorded a second unabridged edition (ISBN 0-7393-2220-6). ==Film adaptation<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == Main article: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was adapted into a science fiction comedy film directed by Garth Jennings and released on 28 April 2005 in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in the USA and Canada. It was rolled out to cinemas worldwide during May, June, July, August and September. ==Series<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The deliberately misnamed Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy consists of six books: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), 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). On 16 September 2008 it was announced that Irish author Eoin Colfer was to pen a sixth book. The book, entitled And Another Thing..., was published in October 2009, on the 30th anniversary of the publication of the original novel.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[4] ==Awards<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] ==
 * 2 Illustrated edition
 * 3 Audiobook adaptations
 * 4 Film adaptation
 * 5 Series
 * 6 Awards
 * 7 See also
 * 8 References
 * 9 External links
 * Number one on the Sunday Times best seller list (1979)
 * Author received the "Golden Pan" (From his publishers for reaching the 1,000,000th book sold) (1984)
 * Waterstone's Books/Channel Four's list of the 'One Hundred Greatest Books of the Century', at number 24. (1996)
 * BBC's "Big Read", an attempt to find the "Nation's Best-loved book", ranked it number four. (2003)