Unbound publishing is excited to announce it is crowdfunding a new book based on the archives of writer and thinker Douglas Adams!
After his death, Douglas Adams’s papers – sixty-seven boxes full of notebooks, letters, scripts, working notes speeches, to-do lists and poems – were loaned by his family to his old Cambridge college, St John’s.
The Unseen Archives of Douglas Adams
Developed in close association with Adams’s estate and family, 42: The wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams will be a full-colour, large-format hardback, reproducing extracts from the archive, presented with explanatory notes to add context. The book will follow his career from early collaborations with Graham Chapman, to his work on Doctor Who, through the Hitchhiker years, Dirk Gently, his ground-breaking non-fiction book Last Chance to See and his later fascinating digital work. Alongside this are details of projects that never came to fruition like a proposed ‘dark ride’ at Chessington World of Adventures.
Edited by Kevin Jon Davies
Kevin first met Adams in 1978 and knew him for twenty years. He has worked on a number of Hitchhiker-related projects. The book will also feature letters to Douglas Adams, written by friends, colleagues and fans, including Stephen Fry, John Lloyd, Neil Gaiman, Caitlin Moran, Dirk Maggs, Sue Freestone, Michael Nesmith, Mark Carwardine and Margo Buchanan.
Kevin on the set of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with Douglas in 1980.
“Douglas Adams was not yet famous in 1978 when my tape recorder was first balanced on his untidy desk. He paused it mid-flow to answer the phone and released it afterwards, completing his previous sentence with a grin. His archives mirror that cluttered desk and his butterfly mind – draft pages, letters and notebooks, with inky crossings-out and “middles of thoughts” – rich with comedic genius and some truly terrible typing.”
-Kevin Jon Davies
A new book from the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which presents unseen material from his personal archive including notebooks, research, letters, scripts, jokes, speeches, to-do lists and even poems.
The archive has a number of documents that reveal Adams’s feelings about the toil of writing. One page of erratically typed notes outlines his struggles: ‘Today I am monumentally fed up with the idea of writing. I haven’t actually written anything for two days, and that makes me fed up as well’.
Made possible by hoopy froods like you
To make 42 a reality, it needs our support! Backers can choose from a very hoopy array of rewards, including copies of the book autographed by Kevin Jon Davies, your name printed in the book, and more!
Learn more about the project, and Check out the rewards packages on the Unbound page here.
Shut up and take your money? Head directly to the Kickstarter now!
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