The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, which tells the story of how human Arthur Dent travels the universe after escaping the destruction of Earth, originally began as a BBC radio series in 1978. The following year brought joy to the literary world when H2G2 was released in novel form with the brilliant six-part BBC 2 television series, starring Simon Jones, David Dixon and Mark Wing-Davey, premiering in 1981.
 

The BBC has reported that Douglas Adams originally wrote 16 chapters for an early version of his third book in the H2G2 trilogy, Life, The Universe and Everything, but filed the typescript away and started over. This abandoned draft for Life, The Universe and Everything was recently discovered in an archive of his work at the University of Cambridge. Extracts will now be included in a new biography, titled The Frood: The True Story of Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Jem Roberts, the biography’s author, received permission from Adams’ family to look at his papers after they were loaned to Cambridge University made the discovery. Roberts explained to BBC News: “The original version was going brilliantly. He had loads of really funny chapters and scenes and then he just decided to abandon the whole lot and start from scratch. The book that we know has exactly the same plot. He’d written a version that was about two thirds of the way through before he abandoned it.

“There are two short extracts, which are very entertaining actually, which were cut from the first book,” Roberts said. “One of them is all about the history of the Dentrassi, who work on the Vogon ships, and there’s a bit where Arthur goes on this long reverie about science, which is very out of character for him, which I think is maybe why it got cut.”

The Frood: The True Story of Douglas Adams and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Jem Roberts will be published in September. If, for some crazy reason, you need a reminder as to the genius that is Douglas Adams and the brilliance of the television series….enjoy!