New spin-off from The Liar

Stephen Fry\'s new audiobook has topped the iTunes charts in just one day.

The first episode of the Dongle of Donald Trefusis was released on Tuesday and is already the top-selling spoken word album in both Britain and America.

But it is also No 2 in the overall UK album chart, behind only Britain’s Got Talent’s electronic string quartet, Escala.

In The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, Fry has reprised the eccentric professor from his debut novel The Liar, published years ago. The premise that Fry’s fictional Cambridge tutor dies, leaving him a memory stick with mysterious contents.

The new adventure will be released over 12 fortnightly audio episodes, each priced £1.99.

The QI host – whose free podcasts have been downloaded 3.6million times and has 520,000 Twitter followers – called the venture ‘a mixture of podcast, audio book and radio monologue’.

Erik Gilbert, of distributers IODA said: ‘Now the rest of the world can enjoy just how much brainier and funnier Fry is than the rest of us mere mortals.’

Published: 28 May 2009