''Corduroy Mansions'' is the first online novel by

Alexander McCall Smith Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE (born 24 August 1948), is a British writer. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an expert on medical law an ...

, author of

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency ''The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'' is a series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith set in Botswana and featuring the character Mma Precious Ramotswe. The series is named after the first novel, published in 1998. Twenty-two novels have been p ...

series. In the first series, the author wrote a chapter a day, starting on 15 Sep 2008, the series running for 20 weeks and totaling 100 episodes. The daily chapters, read by

Andrew Sachs Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor and writer. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Sp ...

were also available as an audio download. The second and third series were published online, running from Monday 21 September 2009 and Monday 13 September 2010, respectively.The Daily Telegraph
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Episodic writing

The concept for ''Corduroy Mansions'' is based on

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

’ episodic writing – which were novels serialised through journals in weekly or monthly instalments, in the 1800s. Following a meeting with acclaimed

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

novelist

Armistead Maupin Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. ( ) (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer notable for '' Tales of the City'', a series of novels set in San Francisco. Early life Maupin was born in Washington, D.C., to Diana Jane (Barton) and Armistead Jones Ma ...

, Alexander McCall Smith pursued this method of writing in 2004 with his novel

44 Scotland Street ''44 Scotland Street'' is an episodic novel by Alexander McCall Smith, the author of ''The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency''. The story was first published as a serial in ''The Scotsman'', starting 26 January 2004, every weekday, for six months. ...

. The story was serialised in instalments every weekday through ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'' newspaper. As ''Corduroy Mansions'' was released online, readers had the opportunity to interact with each other and the author himself through online discussion boards. This was edited by the ''Daily Telegraph'' staff. The project is a collaboration between

Telegraph Media Group Telegraph Media Group Limited (TMG; previously the Telegraph Group) is the proprietor of ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Telegraph''. It is a subsidiary of Press Holdings. David and Frederick Barclay acquired the group on 30 July 2004, ...

Little Brown Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

and Polygon (the fiction imprint of

Birlinn Ltd Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew. Imprints Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including: *Birlinn, which publishes Sc ...

Plot

The story is set in a fictional housing unit in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

nicknamed

Corduroy Corduroy is a textile with a distinctively raised "cord" or wale texture. Modern corduroy is most commonly composed of tufted cords, sometimes exhibiting a channel (bare to the base fabric) between them. Both velvet and corduroy derive from fu ...

Mansions, and details the lives of the inhabitants of the large Pimlico house and others. The main characters are Barbara Ragg, Basil Wickramsinghe, Berthea Snark, Caroline Jarvis, Dee Binder, Eddie French, Freddie de la Hay, Jenny Hedge, Jo Partlin, Marcia Light, Oedipus Snark, Terence Moongrove, and William French. Book two in the award-winning Corduroy Mansions series, ''The Dog Who Came in from the Cold'', ran from 21 Sept 2009 until 19 Dec 2009. Book three in the series, ''A Conspiracy of Friends'', ran from 13 Sept 2010 until 17 Dec 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corduroy Mansions Novels first published in serial form 2008 British novels Novels set in London City of Westminster Novels by Alexander McCall Smith Novels first published online Polygon Books books