42

It's Towel Day 2023, so we wanted to stop by and say hello.

If you haven't seen it already - we're running a competition to win a 42 towel and a copy of the book. Enter here: https://unbound3.typeform.com/to/LNKHw5aj

Last week Unbound's very own John Mitchinson attended Save the Rhino's Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture to tell the crowd about 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams…

On 11 May 2001, Douglas Adams departed this plane of existence rather unexpectedly, aged just 49.

Supporter copies will be on their way to you in August this year. I can't wait for you to discover more of Douglas's thoughts and notes, previously unpublished.

Kevin Jon Davies.

Douglas Adams on the set of the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series, 1980

Hi everyone,

Just to let you all know that we will be closing the supporter names list for 42 on 15th January, 2023.

This means that anyone who pre-orders 42 after 15th January will not get their name in the back of the book (just in case you were all planning on getting an extra copy).

As early supporters of 42, you will all see your name in the back (hurrah!) - expect an email about…

- a note from the team at Unbound -

Hi everyone,

Since our last update, Kevin and Unbound’s editorial and design teams have been working hard behind the scenes to make 42: The wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams a reality.

What began as thousands of photographs of archival material – shot on a phone as Kevin worked his way through the contents of the archive – has been whittled down…

Apologies for the radio silence, but I’ve had some health issues to deal with, whilst working hard on this massively engaging project. A day-long meeting at Unbound’s offices near London Bridge a couple of weeks ago, with Judy Barratt, the technical editor, planning the layout of the book, has resulted in the most intense period delivering actual chapters to the publishers. I can really hear the whooshing…

- a message from Kevin Jon Davies - 

Last year was a trying time for us all. The library at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where Douglas Adams’ personal archives are held, was closed to outsiders for most of the year due to Covid. This was a sensible precaution, allowing only their live-in students access, but a disappointment for me of course, eager to continue my research for the book. When…

News broke recently about the death of Ivan Reitman, famous for directing Ghostbusters (1984),Twins (1988), Dave (1993) and Six Days Seven Nights(1998). Born in Czechoslovakia and raised he Canada, he had his first major hit as producer with Animal House (1978), followed by Kindergarten Cop(1990), Beethoven(1992), and Junior(1994), among many others. He died in his sleep at home in Montecito, California…

- an update from Kevin Jon Davies -

The legend of the Starship Titanic barely merited a passing paragraph in Douglas Adams’ 1982 novel “Life, The Universe and Everything”, the third in the Hitchhiker saga. The ship came into its own some 16 years later as the title of an elaborate 3-disc CD Rom game from his short-lived multi-media company, The Digital Village. The job of adapting that game into…

- An update from Kevin Jon Davies -

Sorry for the seeming radio silence, but now the autumnal/fall season has arrived in the UK, I thought I’d better give a progress report on the book.

A lot of time I would have otherwise spent by now in Douglas Adams’ archives has been lost due to Covid restrictions. The special collections library where they are kept at St. John’s Cambridge has been closed…

Hi everyone,



The team at Unbound just wanted to give you an update on how things are progressing. Douglas's archive is housed in the library of his old Cambridge college, St John's. Covid-19 restrictions meant that it has been temporarily shut to visitors.

The good news is that this has now changed and people are being allowed back in. This means that Kevin can get cracking with the book.…

An update from Kevin Jon Davies:

This past week the troubled music and entertainment retailer HMV announced they are to return to the British high streets with 10 new stores.

This reminds me of when, in late 1980, HMV gave the second vinyl LP of Hitchhiker’s, “The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe” (Original Records, ORA 54) a big boost upon its release.

HMV’s store in London’s busiest…

Something from the archives for the supporters of 42: the wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams, from Kevin Jon Davies....



This line (so redolent of a certain recent ex-POTUS) was written for Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox.

I discovered it in 2016 among some loose pages from a yellow legal pad in Douglas Adams’ archives held at Cambridge. They have it catalogued as written circa…

Hello everyone,

A little announcement!

Save the Rhino have teamed up with Stand Up for Towel Day and on Tuesday, May 25th they're hosting a spectacular and raucous line up of fun and merriment to celebrate Towel Day and all things Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Highlights include:

• Performance on The Meaning of Liff from John Lloyd (QI, Blackadder)
• Panel with Dirk Maggs (The Hitchhiker…

You may have seen that some amazing people have agreed to write letters to Douglas that we will include in the book. We didn’t have space on the campaign page to properly explain how everyone fits into Douglas’s story so we thought it might be interesting to share with you a few more details …

Sanjeev Bhaskar is a comedian and actor who starred in the series The Kumars at No. 42 and championed…

From Kevin Jon Davies..

This is a typical example of Douglas' dot matrix-printed work from the mid-80s, but for an obscure project. He'd met with Ian Hanson, former sculptor, then Head of Studios at the Tussaud's Group. Famous for their waxworks, they were developing a new space-themed 'dark ride' at their Chessington World of Adventures theme park, just outside London in the Surry countryside…

Something from the archive (again).

Here is an extract from a twelve volume epic poem Zen and the Art of Going to the Lavatory, written by Grunthos the Flatulent, the postmaster of the Azgoths of Kria (the second worst poets in the universe). It appeared in the TV series of Hitchhiker's.

During a reading of another of Grunthos's poems, 'Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit…

Something from the archive...

Here is the script for the first episode of the "Hitch-Hiker's" radio series.

Geoffrey Perkins was the producer of the first two radio series. He later become the BBC's Head of Comedy helping to produce an extraordinary array of great TV shows including Drop the Dead Donkey, Spitting Image, the Harry Enfield programmes, The Fast Show, The Catherine Tate Show…

Dear all,

We thought you would like to be made aware of an argument related to the book that is currently raging* in the UK press. A page from the archive that we sent out when announcing the launch of the book included Douglas complaining about being fed up with writing and referring to Arthur Dent as a burk. His peevishness doesn’t last long as you can read on the image below, but it is the spelling…

Dear all,

Just to say a big thank you for everyone who has pledged for the book and helped it reach its target so quickly. We will be posting regular updates to let you all know how the book is progressing and also share with you what we discover along the way.

One of the most curious artefacts in the archive is this little model of Babel Fish. It was spotted by Kevin Jon Davies. I will leave…