Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English writer, dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, as well as a sixth written to complete the plot and television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams' contribution to UK radio is commemorated inThe Radio Academy's Hall of Fame. He also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), Last Chance to See (1990), and three stories for the television series Doctor Who. A posthumous collection of his work, including an unfinished novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Known to his fans as "Bop Ad" after his illegible signature,[2] Adams became known as an advocate for animals and the environment, a lover of fast cars, cameras, and the Apple Mac, and a staunch atheist, famously imagining a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me ...
