Novel found on Adams's PC

The sixth instalment in Douglas Adams's Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is to be published next year

His unfinished novel A Salmon of Doubt has been recovered from his computer, and will be out in May - the first anniversary of the writer's death, reported the Sunday Telegraph.

It will be edited, but remain uncompleted, according to newspaper reports.

Adams died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of 49.

He is believed to have been working on the book, which was found by his widow Jane Belson and his personal assistant Sophie Astin, for almost 11 years.

His agent Ed Victor told the Sunday Telegraph: "We have pored over Douglas's hard drive. There were so many different versions of the novel. He would take it and then revise it repeatedly so there were many files.

" He was a very, very self-critical author and so had a lot of trouble writing. He was a perfectionist."

The novel will form part of a collection of writing, much of it previously unseen.

It will include lecture notes, an essay he wrote for GQ magazine called My Nose, and items from his web site.

Published: 19 Nov 2001