Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. The book went on to be a No. 1 bestseller.

He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992) and many more.

He sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 at the age of 49.