The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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

Douglas Adams was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory manifestations of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: radio, novels, TV, computer games, stage adaptations, comic book, and bath towel. He was born in Cambridge and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001.

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