It will be bought for children, but I think a lot of adults - and I include myself - will buy it to understand better what we have read in the original

Patrick Janson-Smith, MD of Transworld publishers

But while it has sold millions of copies, the bestseller has become notorious as one of the most commonly unfinished books by readers.

The new book will have fewer words and more pictures than the original 1988 blockbuster, according to The Guardian newspaper.

It is reportedly being written by the Cambridge physicist in collaboration with an American scientist, Leonard Mlodinow, who also co-wrote the television science-fiction series Star Trek.

Younger readers

The new book is likely to be called A Brief History of Time for Children or for Young Adults. And it will be aimed at readers of 12 and upwards.

Patrick Janson-Smith, the managing director of Professor Hawking's publishers Transworld, told the paper: "It will be bought for children, but I think a lot of adults - and I include myself - will buy it to understand better what we have read in the original.

"The aim is to put it in a form that's understandable."

The 1988 book, which has sold more than nine million copies and was turned into a television series, was in the Sunday Times non-fiction bestseller list for more than four years. It has been translated into 35 languages.