Life, the Universe and Everything

Life, the Universe and Everything

First edition (UK)
Author	Douglas Adams
Cover artist	David Scutt (UK)
Language	English
Series	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Genre	Comic science fiction
Publisher	Pan Books (UK) Harmony Books (US)
Publication date	August 1982
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	160 (UK Paperback)
ISBN	0-330-26738-8
OCLC	51000970
Preceded by	The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Followed by	So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Life, the Universe and Everything (1982, ISBN 0-345-39182-9) is the third book in the six-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction "trilogy of six books" by British writer Douglas Adams. The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

The story was originally outlined by Adams as Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen to be a Tom Baker Doctor Who television six-part story, but was rejected by the BBC.^[1] It was later considered as a plotline for the second series of the Hitchhiker's TV series, which was never commissioned.

A radio adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything was recorded in 2003 under the guidance of Dirk Maggs, starring the surviving members of the cast of the original Hitchhiker's radio series. Adams himself, at his own suggestion,^{[citation needed]} makes a cameo appearance; due to his death before production began on the series, this was achieved by sampling his character's dialogue from an audio book of the novel read by Adams that was published in the 1990s. The radio adaptation debuted on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004.