Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) was an English author and dramatist. He is best known as the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Hitchhiker's began on radio, and developed into a ”trilogy” of five books (which sold more than fifteen million copies during his lifetime).

His other written works include the Dirk Gently novels, and he co-wrote two Liff books and Last Chance to See, itself based on a radio series. A posthumous collection of essays and other material, including an incomplete novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.

His fans and friends knew Adams a lover of cameras, the Macintosh computer, and other ”techno gizmos”. Adams was a keen technologist, writing about such topics as e-mail and Usenet before they became widely known. Adams was also known as an environmental activist and atheist. Toward the end of his life Adams was a sought-after lecturer on topics including technology and the environment. The biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book The God Delusion to Douglas Adams and in it described how Adams came to understand evolution.