Home The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quintessential Phase by Douglas Adams (ISBN: 9780563504078)

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quintessential Phase Compact disc - 2005

Name: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quintessential Phase
Price: 12.33 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: Douglas Adams
ISBN: 9780563504078

by Douglas Adams

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About this book

"IRRESISTIBLE!" -- The Boston Globe: Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!"[A] WHIMSICAL ODYSSEY...Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy."--Publishers WeeklyFrom the Paperback edition. -

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy aired for the first time at 10:30pm on Wednesday, 8th March 1978 on the BBC as a radio comedy. The radio show's popularity spawned books, a televisions series, several stage plays, a computer game and feature films.

The novel adaptation of Adam's radio series is a misnamed “Trilogy” of six books, five written by Douglas Adams – that sold more than 15 millions copies in his lifetime - and a sixth by Eoin Colfer.

At the release of the fourth book the series was named "trilogy in four parts," and the US edition of the fifth book was originally released with the legend "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy" on the cover. Subsequent re-releases of the other novels bore the legend "The [first, second, third, fourth] book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy". In addition, the blurb on the fifth book describes it as "the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word 'trilogy'"

Before his death from a heart attack on May 11, 2001, Adams was considering writing a sixth novel in the Hitchhiker's series. Eoin Colfer, an Irish writer of Children's Books, most famous for his Artemis Fowl series, wrote the sixth book in the Hitchhiker's series in 2008–09.

Books in the Series (Trilogy) are as follows:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Mostly Harmless
And Another Thing...

Two omnibus editions were created by Douglas Adams to combine the Hitchhiker series novels and to "set the record straight". The stories came in so many different formats that Adams stated that every time he told it he would contradict himself. Therefore, he stated in the introduction of
The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide that "anything I put down wrong here is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong for good." The two omnibus editions were The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide, Complete and Unabridged (published in 1987) and The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, Complete and Unabridged (published in 1997).

Inspired in part by Ken Walsh's Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe published in 1971, which stresses the importance of towels to the travelling hitch-hiker, an important article to the Hitchhiker's in Adam's galaxy as well.

When Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster was launched into space on the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018, it had the words DON'T PANIC on the dashboard display and carried amongst other items a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and a towel.

From the publisher

Don't panic! The Hitchhiker's saga returns once again with a full-cast dramatisation of Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in Douglas Adams's famous 'trilogy in five parts'. 'A radio event... the great original cast has been reassembled'. Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph

While frequent flyer Arthur Dent searches the universe for his lost love, Ford Prefect discovers a disturbing blast from the past at The Hitchhiker's Guide HQ. Meanwhile, on one of many versions of Earth, a blonder, more American Trillian gets tangled up with a party of lost aliens having an identity crisis. And just when Arthur thinks he has found his true vocation on the backwater planet of Lamuella, the original Trillian turns up with more than a little spanner in the works. A stolen ship, a dramatic stampede and a new and sinister Guide lead to a race to save the Earth ... again. But this time, will they succeed? Simon Jones returns as Arthur, Geoffrey McGivern as Ford, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Sandra Dickinson as Tricia McMillan, and Stephen Moore as Marvin. William Franklyn is the Book, Rula Lenska is also the Book and Samantha Bart is Random. Guest stars include Miriam Margolyes, Griff Rhys Jones, John Challis, Roy Hudd, Saeed Jaffrey, and Jonathan Pryce. This extended CD edition features 40 minutes of material not heard on BBC Radio 4. Duration: 2 hrs 30 mins approx.

First Edition Identification

First published in London 12th October 1979 – sold 250,000 copies in the first three months. US edition is 1980, Harmony Books. First edition, signed run $1,000-$2,000.-

Details

Title The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quintessential Phase
Author Douglas Adams
Binding Compact Disc
Pages 1
Volumes 2
Language ENG
Publisher Random House Audio Publishing Group
Date 2005-06
ISBN 9780563504078 / 0563504072
Weight 0.25 lbs (0.11 kg)
Dimensions 4.9 x 5.6 x 0.4 in (12.45 x 14.22 x 1.02 cm)
Ages 18 to 22 years
Grade levels 13 - 17
Dewey Decimal Code FIC

About the author

DOUGLAS ADAMS was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller. He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more. He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49. Simon Jones MBE is a former professional cricketer who played for England, Glamorgan, Hampshire and Worcestershire. In 2005 he tore through the Australian batting order, swinging the ball at pace, and inspiring some of England's greatest ever victories as they regained the Ashes for the first time in almost twenty years. That series he dismissed every single Australian batsman apart from Glenn McGrath, taking 18 wickets at an average of 21. Injury forced him out of the final match at the Oval and prevented him from playing Test cricket again. He subsequently fought for eight years to return to the top level despite a series of further setbacks. Now retired, he lives in Cardiff with his wife Justine and his two young sons.