Publisher
At the start of the series, the Guide was published by Megadodo Publications, one of the "great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor." When Megadodo was bought out by Infinidim Enterprises in Mostly Harmless, the new editor in chief, Vann Harl, changed the Guide's demographic from penniless hitchhikers to families in billions of billions of alternate worlds, thus altering the Guide's original purpose. When Ford learned of this plan, he knocked out Vann Harl and stole his Ident-I-Eze card to increase the spending limit on Ford's own Dine-O-Charge card. Ford was thus able to use his Dine-O-Charge to buy (among other things): a pink spaceship, all the foie gras in London, and The London Zoo, in addition to buying the hotel he was staying at for the concierge, all charged to the Guide and Infinidim Enterprises.
Read more about this topic: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (fictional)
Famous quotes containing the word publisher:
“To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.... A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honourable to which a man can be called?”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“A publisher is a specialised form of bank or building society, catering for customers who cannot cope with life and are therefore forced to write about it.”
—Colin Haycraft (b. 1929)
“No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide.... I can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher. A publisher is simply a useful middle-man. It is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)