Stephen Fry's youthful success in show business—including well-remunerated work in television and movies and an adaptation of the musical Me and My Girl, which won an Olivier Award in London and three Tonys in New York—both preceded and overshadowed his literary work, suggesting that his fiction is a secondary interest. He maintains, however, as Lynn Barber reported in the Observer (10 May 1998), that “he regards himself primarily as a writer and that he has 'a more compulsive need to write than to act. '” His three novels are witty and imaginative and show a deep concern for serious ideas.

Stephen John Fry was born in London on 24 August 1957 to Alan John Fry and his wife, Marianne (née Newman). Alan Fry was an electronics engineer who formed his own company, operating from his home in rural Norfolk during Stephen's childhood. Marianne Fry was Jewish, and Stephen...