Welcome to the Best of the Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fiction Arthur Dent thought his day was going badly when someone tried to demolish his house. Then someone demolished his planet. Rescued by his friend Ford - who is not a human from Guilford, but an alien from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse - Arthur is flung into an adventure among the stars. He will face aliens, robots, world-builders, and that girl he quite fancied who turned him down at a party one time. All in the name of research for the greatest book in the galaxy. He just has to remember not to panic. Part of the multi-media phenomenon The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is beloved the world over. Douglas Adams' 'trilogy in five parts' originated as a radio show, developed into a book series, and has since spawned a TV series, a film, additional sequels and expanded radio series, a famously impossible video game, and a number of stage shows. It was a Sunday Times bestseller, and ranked fourth in a 2003 BBC poll to find the Nation's Best-Loved Book. - 'Douglas Adams's inspired melding of hippy-trail guidebook and sci-fi comedy turned its novelisations into a publishing phenomenon' - Guardian 'In a sense that only time can test, it could be said that the Hitchhiker's Guide has become folklore' - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 'Douglas was a genius, and that's not actually a word I toss around very lightly or use very much' - Neil Gaiman

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

__________________________________ THE COMPLETE HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SERIES Don't panic. First a legendary radio series, then a sequence of bestselling books, a television series, a computer game, a little-known Belgian progressive rock opera, a blockbuster movie, and finally this handsome hardback edition – primarily intended as a blunt object with which to bludgeon one's enemies – The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the greatest fictional enterprises of the twentieth century. Telling the long, circuitous and often inexplicable story of Arthur Dent, left homeless and rather annoyed after the Earth is destroyed in order to build a hyperspace expressway, this edition collects all five parts of the trilogy: · The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy · The Restaurant at the End of the Universe · Life, the Universe and Everything · So Long and Thanks For All the Fish · Mostly Harmless along with a wealth of extra material prefaced and contextualised by Jem Roberts, the official biographer of Douglas Adams, to complete the canon. Introduced by Richard Dawkins and Nick Harkaway

Hitchhikers

A one-volume edition charting Arthur Dent's odyssey through space, comprising:"The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy": One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. For Arthur, who has just had his house demolished, this is too much. Sadly, the weekend's just begun."The Restaurant at the End of the Universe": When all issues of space, time, matter and the nature of being are resolved, only one question remains: Where shall we have dinner? "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" provides the ultimate gastronomic experience and, for once, there is no morning after."Life, the Universe and Everything": In consequence of a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a hideously miserable cave on prehistoric Earth. And then, just as he thinks that things cannot possibly get any worse, they suddenly do."So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish": Arthur Dent's sense of reality is in its dickiest state when he suddenly finds the girl of his dreams. They go in search of God's Final Message and, in a dramatic break with tradition, actually find it.

In one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchhiker series. Now celebrating the pivotal 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read) Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe The moment before annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat. Life, the Universe and Everything The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription thrusts him back to reality. So to speak. Mostly Harmless Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself? Includes the bonus story “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe” “With droll wit, a keen eye for detail and heavy doses of insight . . . Adams makes us laugh until we cry.”—San Diego Union-Tribune “Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.”—The Atlantic

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

March 1978 saw the first ever transmission of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on BBC Radio 4; the beginning of a cult phenomenon. March 2020 marks the 42nd anniversary of that first transmission – 42 being the answer, of course, to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. To mark the occasion, Pan Macmillan are bringing back into print The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts with a brand-new introduction from Simon Jones. The collection also includes the previously 'lost' Hitchhiker script from the 25th anniversary edition, 'Sheila's Ear' and the original introductions by producer Geoffrey Perkins and Douglas Adams. This collection, which is a faithful reproduction of the text as it was first published in 1985, features all twelve original radio scripts – Hitchhiker as it was written and exactly as it was broadcast for the very first time. They include amendments and additions made during recordings and original notes on the writing and producing of the series by Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins. For those who have always loved Douglas Adams, as well as for his new generation of fans, these scripts are essential reading and a must-have piece of Adams memorabilia. This special anniversary edition will sit alongside reissued eye-catching editions of the five individual Hitchhiker books coming in May 2020: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless.

The Original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts