Book Deal for Dying Professor

A dying professor's inspirational speech, an Internet sensation this fall, will be published next spring by Hyperion Books.

Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, gave a lecture in September in which he spoke of suffering from pancreatic cancer and likely having just months to live. A video of the speech soon began spreading online, attracting millions of viewers, and the 47-year-old Pausch eventually gave television interviews to Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric and others.

"Remember, brick walls let us show our dedication," Pausch advises in his speech. "They are there to separate us from the people who don't really want to achieve their childhood dreams. Don't bail."

The book will be called "The Last Lecture" and will be written with the Wall Street Journal's Jeff Zaslow. Financial terms were not disclosed, although the deal has been widely reported to be worth more than $6 million.

"I was deeply moved by Randy's speech, as millions of others have been," Hyperion president Robert S. Miller said in a statement Tuesday. "We believe that his book can go beyond the speech to inspire readers for years to come to choose to live each day of their lives with purpose and joy."