42

By Douglas Adams, edited by Kevin Jon Davies

A publishing event: hundreds of artefacts from Douglas Adams' archive, printed for the first time

Autobiography | Humour
293% funded
3562 supporters
Preparing for print

Publication date: August 2023

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Collector’s Edition Artwork Bundle

The Collector’s Edition features a special French fold dust jacket printed on both sides that folds out into a poster. Signed by Kevin Jon Davies.

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  • Four postcards
  • Two bookmarks
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Two copies of the Collector’s Edition that features a special French fold dust jacket printed on both sides that folds out into a poster. Signed by Kevin Jon Davies.

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  • The ebook
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Collector’s Edition Artwork Bundle 2

The Collector’s Edition featuring a special French fold dust jacket printed on both sides that folds out into a poster. Signed by Kevin Jon Davies.

PLUS:

  • Two A5 notebooks
  • Four postcards
  • Two bookmarks
  • The ebook
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  • The Collector’s Edition signed by Kevin Jon Davies
  • A specially designed yellow legal pad and Pentel pen (as favoured by Douglas)
  • Two A4 art prints
  • Two A5 notebooks
  • Four postcards
  • Two bookmarks
  • The ebook

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When Douglas Adams died in 2001, he left behind 60 boxes full of notebooks, letters, scripts, jokes, speeches and even poems. In 42, compiled by Douglas’s long-time collaborator Kevin Jon Davies, hundreds of these personal artefacts appear in print for the very first time.

Douglas was as much a thinker as he was a writer, and his artefacts reveal how his deep fascination with technology led to ideas which were far ahead of their time: a convention speech envisioning the modern smartphone, with all the information in the world living at our fingertips; sheets of notes predicting the advent of electronic books; journal entries from his forays into home computing – it is a matter of legend that Douglas bought the very first Mac in the UK; musings on how the internet would disrupt the CD-Rom industry, among others.

42 also features archival material charting Douglas’s school days through Cambridge, Footlights, collaborations with Graham Chapman, and early scribbles from the development of Doctor WhoHitchhiker’s and Dirk Gently. Alongside details of his most celebrated works are projects that never came to fruition, including the pilot for radio programme They’ll Never Play That on the Radio and a space-inspired theme park ride.

Douglas’s personal papers prove that the greatest ideas come from the fleeting thoughts that collide in our own imagination, and offer a captivating insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers and most enduring storytellers.

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$40  + shipping
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Hardback

The hardback edition of the book.

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