The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy States and Canada with Hannibal Records and Simon and Schuster were later negotiated by Douglas Adams and his agent, Ed Victor, after gaining full rights to the recordings from Original Records, which went bankrupt. There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. The first was an abridged edition (), recorded in the mid-1980s for the EMI label Music For Pleasure by Stephen Moore, best known for playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the radio series and in the TV series. In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition for Dove Audiobooks (), later re-released by New
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by 2005. In 2017, BBC Radio 4 announced a 40th-anniversary celebration with Dirk Maggs, one of the original producers, in charge. This sixth series of the sci-fi spoof has been based on Eoin Colfer's book "And Another Thing", with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams. The first of six new episodes was broadcast on 8 March 2018. The broad narrative of "Hitchhiker" follows the misadventures of the last surviving man, Arthur Dent, following the demolition of the planet Earth by a Vogon constructor fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Dent is rescued from Earth's destruction by Ford Prefect,