A VERY OLD IDEA AND A VERY NEW IDEA: JULIAN FELLOWES BRINGS THE SERIAL INTO THE DIGITAL AGE

Ground-breaking new project will see story published in weekly chapters on immersive app

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and Hachette NZ are delighted to announce an exciting new publishing project that has its roots in the writing of Dickens, Hardy and Gaskell.

JULIAN FELLOWES’S BELGRAVIA will launch in April 2016 and will marry cutting edge technology with the age-old art of storytelling. A free, immersive app containing the first episode of Julian’s new story will be available to download to smartphones and tablets from Google Play and iTunes App Stores, or via www.julianfellowesbelgravia.com. A further ten episodes will be released week by week, building up the story in bite-sized instalments complete with twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings. Each episode can be bought for $4.99. When the final episode has been released, Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia will be published in book form for traditional readers. The episodes can also be listened to as audiobooks, and the reader will be able to switch within the app between reading and listening at any stage. Each episode will contain extra content around the story such as video, music, character portraits, maps of Belgravia, background information on the history of the period, fashions, family trees and exclusive competitions. These will also be found at www.julianfellowesbelgravia.com.

The story

Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia opens on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, 15^th June 1815, when the Duchess of Richmond threw a magnificent ball in Brussels for the Duke of Wellington. Just before 1am, word came that Napoleon had unexpectedly crossed the border and Wellington and his troops had to leave immediately to prepare for war. Many of the officers died on the battlefield, still in their dress uniforms. At the ball are James and Anne Trenchard, who have made their money in trade. Their beautiful daughter Sophia has caught the eye of Edmund Bellasis, the son and heir of one of Britain’s most prominent families. An event takes place at the ball that has a seismic effect on all their lives. Twenty-five years later, when the two families are settled in the newly developed area of Belgravia, the consequences of this terrible secret still resonate. Behind the doors of these magnificent new houses lies a web of gossip and intrigue.

Julian Fellowes will be joined on this exciting project by the writers behind Mr Selfridge and Hotel Babylon, Lindy Woodhead and Imogen Edwards-Jones, who will be acting as Historical Consultant and Editorial Consultant respectively.

Julian Fellowes received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Gosford Park (2002), his first produced film. His work was also honoured by the Writer’s Guild of America, The New York Film Critics’ Circle and the National Society of Film Critics for Best Screenplay. As creator, sole writer and executive producer of the smash hit series Downton Abbey, Fellowes has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards. He received Emmy Awards for writing and Outstanding Miniseries or Movie in the first season and a Special International Emmy after the last was shown in the UK. Downton Abbey, the highest rated drama in PBS’s history, is produced by Carnival Films & Television, a division of NBC Universal. Masterpiece is a co-producer of the series. Season 6 is the final season of the worldwide hit TV drama. Other writing credits for film include Piccadilly Jim (2004), Vanity Fair (2004), The Young Victoria (2009), The Tourist (2010), Romeo & Juliet (2013), and for television the four-hour mini-series Titanic (2012), and the upcoming three-part drama Doctor Thorn. Fellowes has also entered into a deal with NBC and Universal Television to create, write and produce the dramatic television series The Gilded Age. Fellowes has authored two novels: the international bestsellers Snobs (2005) and Past Imperfect (2008/2009), and the children’s book The Curious Adventures of the Abandoned Toys (2007). Scripts of the first three seasons of Downton Abbey that include notes by Fellowes have also been published. In January 2011, Fellowes was given a peerage and entered the House of Lords as the Lord Fellowes of West Stafford.