Richard Ayoade is doubling down on his doppelganger preoccupation for his latest book, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal.

The comedian and filmmaker, who made the 2013 black comedy thriller The Double based upon Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1846 novella of the same name, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska alongside Chris Morris, has written The Unfinished Harauld Hughes, seemingly a fictionalised account of his attempts to rescue the reputation of a lookalike auteur.

Published on 19th November by Faber & Faber, the book chronicles "Ayoade's dogged quest to rescue Harauld Hughes - the great mid-century playwright, and Ayoade's uncanny doppelganger - from obscurity", with the subject's name perhaps suggesting an amalgamation of Ayoade's Norwegian ancestry and the eccentric, reclusive reputation of legendary film producer and maverick businessman Howard Hughes.

According to Faber's description, "the gifted filmmaker, corduroy activist and amateur dentist, Richard Ayoade, first chanced upon a copy of The Two-Hander Trilogy by Harauld Hughes in a second-hand bookshop. At first startled by his uncanny resemblance to the author's photo, he opened the volume and was electrified. Terse, aggressive, and elliptical, what was true of Ayoade was also true of Hughes's writing, which encompassed stage, screen, and some of the shortest poems ever published."

The IT Crowd and Garth Merenghi's Darkplace star has apparently embarked on a documentary, The Unfinished Harauld Hughes, to understand the "unfathomable collapse" of Hughes's final film O Bedlam! O Bedlam!, taking us deep inside the most furious British writer since the Boer War, with this book "the story of the story of that quest".

Meanwhile, as BCG first revealed last year, Ayoade, who has written four previous books, is preparing to direct his third film - and his first since The Double - an adaptation of George Saunders's dystopian short story The Semplica Girl Diaries.

He is also publishing his second children's novel, The Fairy Tale Fan Club: Legendary Letters Collected By C.C. Cecily on 5th September, a collection of letters between curious children and their fairy tale character idols.