Douglas got the manuscript for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in to his editors at Pan slightly late (according to legend they telephoned him and asked, rather desperately, where he was in the book, and how much more he had to go. He told them. “Well,” said his editor, making the best of a bad job, “just finish the page you’re on and we’ll send a motorbike around to pick it up in half an hour”). The book, a paperback original, became a surprise bestseller, as did, less surprisingly, its four sequels. It spawned a bestselling text-based computer game.
