New Douglas Adams May Put New Spin on Beloved Material

When Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams died much too young at 49 in May of 2001, he left a lot of stories untold. At least, that’s what his fans have always suspected. Thanks to his new biographer, JL Roberts, those fans will soon be proven correct. From The Guardian:

There is "an enormous amount of material out there that has never been seen before," said Roberts. As well as Life, the Universe and Everything, the biography will feature an alternative original pitch for Hitchhiker, a lost rough script for the second television series, and further scraps of unused material, with names like Baggy the Runch and The Assumption of Saint Zalabad.

The Life, the Universe and Everything draft, Roberts said, has "whole chapters where the characters are doing different things – different ideas he never got round to using, [such as] chapters written from Arthur Dent's point of view". 

But "none of this stuff is finished," he added. "It's very important to contextualise this material properly … and I understand people thinking that this is raw material and he didn't want it to be seen. I spend part of the book asking what Douglas would have wanted … but there are so many great Douglas Adams jokes which have been completely air-sealed for the last 20 years. [And] I think it's wonderful that we finally get to read some of this stuff."

We agree! You can read more about Roberts’ fascinating journey of Adams’ discovery here.