"DON'T PANIC!": FIRST AMERICAN EDITIONS OF THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY FIVE-VOLUME "TRILOGY," LAST TWO VOLUMES SIGNED BY ADAMS

ADAMS, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish; Mostly Harmless. New York: Harmony Books, (1980-1992). Octavo, original half cloth or full paper with foil stamping, original dust jackets. $3950.

First American editions, first printings of all five books in Adams' pan-galactically popular "trilogy in five parts," the last two volumes signed by the author.

Inspired by a fleeting thought Adams had while hitchhiking across Europe as a teen, the cult classic Hitchhiker's story began life as a 1978 BBC radio serial. "The series was an overnight success and rescued Adams from the life of a struggling comedy sketch writer. It spawned a television show, five books and other spin-offs," including a major motion picture in 2005 (The Guardian). Hitchhiker's "came at just the right time… Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had created a willingness among the public to regard science fiction as an acceptable form of entertainment," and "science fiction readers had long been in need of something that was actually funny" (Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic, 58). "Adams' work is now enshrined as part of the global cultural zeitgeist" (Simpson, 351). Series first published as Pan paperbacks in London from 1979-1992, the first three books followed by Arthur Barker's first English hardcover editions of 1980-1982, the fourth printed in hardcover by Pan in 1984, and the fifth by Heinemann in 1992. After the first two books, the first American editions of the rest of the series were published in the same years as the first English editions.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish signed by Adams on the front free endpaper; Mostly Harmless signed on the title page.

Books fine; dust jackets all near-fine, first two with minor toning, third with small spots of expert and nearly undetectable restoration, fourth with tiny chip at head.