The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography
Encyclopedia
The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography is the 2010 autobiography
of Stephen Fry
. The book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication of his first autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography. Though not adhering to any strict chronology, it concentrates on the seven-year period of Fry’s life, taking up the story after his release from prison, his time at the University of Cambridge
and his burgeoning career in comedy by the late 1980s.
This is Fry's tenth book and his second volume of autobiography. Critics have called the book candid, sincere, and charming, with insightful commentary if occasionally flat stories. Fry's academic and comedic background is reflected in the writing's rational and burlesque style.
It was published by Michael Joseph on 13 September 2010 in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It was simultaneously published as an eBook (in regular and an enhanced version) an audiobook and an iOS application by ePenguin; both imprint
s of Penguin Books
.
in Cambridge
from 1979, joining the Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club where he met Hugh Laurie
, with whom he forged a highly successful writing partnership. His first play, Latin! or Tobacco and Boys, written for Footlights, won an award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1980. He wrote again for theatre in 1984 when he rewrote Noel Gay’s musical Me and My Girl
, which was nominated for a Tony Award
in 1987.
Fry traveled to Los Angeles
in January 2010 to write his second autobiography, when he publicly announced his "self-imposed exile" from various online services, such as Twitter
. Fry returned to Britain and various online services in late April 2010. He publicly announced his return on his blog
that there had been a few "exceptions" to his self-imposed exile and that he planned to gradually return to Twitter, so as not to annoy his followers. In it he also described his life while working on his book, saying that he wrote solely in the mornings, from "about 5 AM till lunchtime", leaving afternoons and early evenings for "other things". He acknowledges his "peculiar" lifestyle when writing, saying it is "the only way to coax a book out of me".
in Cambridge
.
The Fry Chronicles tells of his life up to his 30th birthday, covering, over 425 pages, his time at university, his steady rise to success as a writer and performer, meeting Emma Thompson
, Hugh Laurie
and Rowan Atkinson
, as he makes his way through countless sketch shows and his rise to fame on Saturday Live and Blackadder
, while at the same time, his redaction of the musical Me and My Girl
becoming a global success, making him a modest fortune, while he was still in his twenties.
Later chapters tell of his career in television, while recalling the many articles he has written as well as his adaptation of the musical Me and My Girl
, which accounted for his early fortune. The book ends in August 1987, his 30th birthday, at his six bedroom house in Norfolk
.
The dedication of The Fry Chronicles reads simply "To M'Coll
".
Fry acknowledges that he uses 100 words where "ten would do" and he defends this as showing his "great, generous love of words".
to promote the release of The Fry Chronicles. The event was broadcast, direct via satellite, to 60 locations across the United Kingdom.
, an electronically enhanced eBook
, a non-enhanced eBook, an audiobook narrated by Fry himself and an iOS application. All five publications were released on 13 September 2010. Fry acknowledged in an interview that the publishing "landscape is changing", but insisted that the conventional "paper book is not dead". This method of publication was described by other publishers as "innovative and groundbreaking".
, iPad
or iPod
. The applications interface is centred around a dynamic index that allows readers to explore the book's content in a non-linear fashion.
. Fry is dressed in a corduroy
jacket and checkered shirt. The pattern used on the hardback book's endpaper
coordinates with the socks that Fry is wearing on the book cover
.
list of non-fiction bestsellers in England. It sold 37,000 copies in the first five days of its release, outselling the next most popular title, Lee Child
's 61 Hours
, by 8,000 copies.
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
of Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
. The book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication of his first autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography. Though not adhering to any strict chronology, it concentrates on the seven-year period of Fry’s life, taking up the story after his release from prison, his time at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and his burgeoning career in comedy by the late 1980s.
This is Fry's tenth book and his second volume of autobiography. Critics have called the book candid, sincere, and charming, with insightful commentary if occasionally flat stories. Fry's academic and comedic background is reflected in the writing's rational and burlesque style.
It was published by Michael Joseph on 13 September 2010 in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It was simultaneously published as an eBook (in regular and an enhanced version) an audiobook and an iOS application by ePenguin; both imprint
Trade name
A trade name, also known as a trading name or a business name, is the name which a business trades under for commercial purposes, although its registered, legal name, used for contracts and other formal situations, may be another....
s of Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
.
Background
Fry was born in 1957 in London and brought up in Norfolk. He attended Queens' CollegeQueens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
from 1979, joining the Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club where he met Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
, with whom he forged a highly successful writing partnership. His first play, Latin! or Tobacco and Boys, written for Footlights, won an award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1980. He wrote again for theatre in 1984 when he rewrote Noel Gay’s musical Me and My Girl
Me and My Girl
Me and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....
, which was nominated for a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
in 1987.
Fry traveled to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in January 2010 to write his second autobiography, when he publicly announced his "self-imposed exile" from various online services, such as Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
. Fry returned to Britain and various online services in late April 2010. He publicly announced his return on his blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
that there had been a few "exceptions" to his self-imposed exile and that he planned to gradually return to Twitter, so as not to annoy his followers. In it he also described his life while working on his book, saying that he wrote solely in the mornings, from "about 5 AM till lunchtime", leaving afternoons and early evenings for "other things". He acknowledges his "peculiar" lifestyle when writing, saying it is "the only way to coax a book out of me".
Contents
Stephen Fry's first memoir, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography, published in 1997, told of Fry's life up to the age of 18, when he was told that, despite his delinquent adolescence, he had won a scholarship to Queens' CollegeQueens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
.
The Fry Chronicles tells of his life up to his 30th birthday, covering, over 425 pages, his time at university, his steady rise to success as a writer and performer, meeting Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
, Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
and Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
, as he makes his way through countless sketch shows and his rise to fame on Saturday Live and Blackadder
Blackadder
Blackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC1 historical sitcom, along with several one-off instalments. All television programme episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as anti-hero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robinson as Blackadder's dogsbody, Baldrick...
, while at the same time, his redaction of the musical Me and My Girl
Me and My Girl
Me and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....
becoming a global success, making him a modest fortune, while he was still in his twenties.
Later chapters tell of his career in television, while recalling the many articles he has written as well as his adaptation of the musical Me and My Girl
Me and My Girl
Me and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....
, which accounted for his early fortune. The book ends in August 1987, his 30th birthday, at his six bedroom house in Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
.
The dedication of The Fry Chronicles reads simply "To M'Coll
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
".
Style
Chapters in The Fry Chronicles are organised under headings all beginning with the letter "C". The book ends with Fry taking cocaine, a subject that he intends to discuss further in his third autobiography.Fry acknowledges that he uses 100 words where "ten would do" and he defends this as showing his "great, generous love of words".
Promotion and release
The book was launched with a preview performance on 13 September 2010 at the Royal Festival HallRoyal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
to promote the release of The Fry Chronicles. The event was broadcast, direct via satellite, to 60 locations across the United Kingdom.
Publication
The Fry Chronicles was the first publication to be published simultaneously as a conventionally printed bookBook
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
, an electronically enhanced eBook
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
, a non-enhanced eBook, an audiobook narrated by Fry himself and an iOS application. All five publications were released on 13 September 2010. Fry acknowledged in an interview that the publishing "landscape is changing", but insisted that the conventional "paper book is not dead". This method of publication was described by other publishers as "innovative and groundbreaking".
eBook
It was released as a regular eBook with an electronically enhanced version released exclusively via the iBookstore. The enhanced version includes eight exclusive videos of Fry expanding further on the anecdotes he wrote about in the printed text, integrated photography throughout and links to relevant websites and online content; while the other is simply a digital copy of the printed text, without the interactive content and only the photographs published with the printed text.iOS application
The iOS application, titled MyFry, can be used on an iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
or iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
. The applications interface is centred around a dynamic index that allows readers to explore the book's content in a non-linear fashion.
Artwork
The photograph on the front cover of the book was taken by David Eustace in June 2010. Eustace was approached by John Hamilton, on behalf of Penguin BooksPenguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
. Fry is dressed in a corduroy
Corduroy
Corduroy is a textile composed of twisted fibers that, when woven, lie parallel to one another to form the cloth's distinct pattern, a "cord." Modern corduroy is most commonly composed of tufted cords, sometimes exhibiting a channel between the tufts...
jacket and checkered shirt. The pattern used on the hardback book's endpaper
Endpaper
The endpapers or end-papers of a book are the leaves of paper before the title page and after the text. Booksellers sometimes refer to the front end paper as FEP....
coordinates with the socks that Fry is wearing on the book cover
Book cover
A book cover is any protective covering used to bind together the pages of a book. Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older forms such as the nineteenth-century "paper-boards" and...
.
Critical reception and sales
The Fry Chronicles debuted at #1 on The Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
list of non-fiction bestsellers in England. It sold 37,000 copies in the first five days of its release, outselling the next most popular title, Lee Child
Lee Child
Jim Grant , better known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British thriller writer. His wife Jane is a New Yorker, and they currently live in New York state. His first novel, Killing Floor, won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel....
's 61 Hours
61 Hours
61 Hours is the fourteenth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. It was published on 18 March 2010 in the UK and 18 May 2010 in the USA.-Plot summary:...
, by 8,000 copies.