**This beautifully illustrated edition of the New York Times bestselling classic celebrates the 42nd anniversary of the original publication with all-new art by award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell.

Nominated as one of America s best-loved novels by PBS s The Great American Read**

It s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur s best friend has just announced that he s an alien.

After that, things get much, much worse.

With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DON T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover.

Douglas Adams s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . .

“Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon.”**—*The Washington Post Book World

“Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.”**—*The Atlantic

“Irresistible!”—*The Boston Globe
*
“With droll wit, a keen eye for detail and heavy doses of insight . . . Adams makes us laugh until we cry.”—*The San Diego Union-Tribune
*
“One of the greatest achievements in comedy. A work of staggering genius.”—David Walliams
**
“Really entertaining and fun.”—Michael Palin
**
“Fizzing with ideas . . . brilliant.”—Charlie Brooker
**
“Weird and wonderful.”—Eoin Colfer
**
“It changed my whole life. It’s literally out of this world.”—Tom Baker

Autorentext

Douglas Adams

Klappentext

"This is the story of Arthur Dent, who, seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect, who has been posing as an out-of-work actor for the last fifteen years but is really a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together they begin a journey through the galaxy aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with the words don't panic written on the front. ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have."). In their travels they meet: Zaphod Beeblebrox-the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch President of the Galaxy; Trillian-Zaphod's girl friend, formerly Tricia McMillan, whom Arthur once tried to pick up at a cocktail party; Marvin-a paranoid android, a brilliant but chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig-former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. To find the answers to these burning questions: Why are we born? Why do we die? And why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But remember -- don't panic, and don't forget to bring a towel. The story of a British earthling plucked from his planet, and his subsequent adventures elsewhere in the universe."--Provided by publisher.

Zusammenfassung
**This beautifully illustrated edition of the New York Times bestselling classic celebrates the 42nd anniversary of the original publication—with all-new art by award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read**

It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s an alien.

After that, things get much, much worse.

With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover.

Douglas Adams’s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . .

Leseprobe
*Chapter One
*
The house stood on a slight rise just on the edge of the village. It stood on its own and looked out over a broad spread of West Country farmland. Not a remarkable house by any means—it was about thirty years old, squattish, squarish, made of brick, and had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly failed to please the eye.

The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and that was only because it happened to be the one he lived in. He had lived in it for about three years, ever since he had moved out of London because it made him nervous and irritable. He was about thirty as well, tall, dark-haired and never quite at ease with himself. The thing that used to worry him most was the fact that people always used to ask him what he was looking so worried about. He worked in local radio which he always used to tell his friends was a lot more interesting than they probably thought. It was, too—most of his friends worked in advertising.

On Wednesday night it had rained very heavily, the lane was wet and muddy, but the Thursday morning sun was bright and clear as it shone on Arthur Dent’s house for what was to be the last time.

It hadn’t properly registered yet with Arthur that the council wanted to knock it down and build a bypass instead.

At eight o’clock on Thursday morning Arthur didn’t feel very good. He woke up blearily, got up, wandered blearily round his room, opened a window, saw a bulldozer, found his slippers, and stomped off to the bathroom to wash.

Toothpaste on the brush—so. Scrub.

Shaving mirror—pointing at the ceiling. He adjusted it. For a moment it reflected a second bulldozer through the bathroom window. Properly adjusted, it reflected Arthur Dent’s bristles. He shaved them off, washed, dried and stomped off to the kitchen to find something pleasant to put in his mouth.

Kettle, plug, fridge, milk, coffee. Yawn.

The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with.

The bulldozer outside the kitchen window was quite a big one.

He stared at it.

'Yellow,' he thought, and stomped off back to his bedroom to get dressed.

Passing the bathroom he stopped to drink a large glass of water, and another. He began to suspect that he was hung over. Why was he hung over? Had he been drinking the night before? He supposed that he must have been. He caught a glint in the shaving mirror. “Yellow,” he thought, and stomped on to the bedroom.

He stood and thought. The pub, he thought. Oh dear, the pub. He vaguely remembered being angry, angry about something that seemed important. He’d been telling people about it, telling people about it at great lengt…