As the first episode's writing progressed, the "Guide" became the central focus of his story, and Adams decided to base the whole series around it, with the initial destruction of Earth being the only holdover from the "Ends of the Earth" proposal. In Adams' February 1977 outline, the character of Arthur Dent was called "Aleric B", the joke being that the audience initially assume the character is also an alien rather than a human. Adams renamed the character for the pilot to "Arthur Dent". Adams' biographer M. J. Simpson suggested that the character was almost certainly named after the 17th century puritan writer Arthur Dent, author of "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven" first published in 1601, although Adams himself claimed no recollection of consciously choosing the name.