Serial anyone?
MILADY was first serialised on Substack 11/01/2025. Now I know where she is, do I have to search any more?
Substack is THE place to serialise a story, such as MILADY, and of course, as usual, I am led by my muse, who I am sure would be here, churning out chapters behind a big tall paywall. Actually, he’d be in television working his story team like a machine. And drinking wine. And gambling. And flirting.
Just as Alexandre Dumas has acted as muse and mentor, many others have assisted in the creation of this project. I would especially like to thank Lucinda Cotter and Louise Cullinan for their invaluable support and encouragement from the start. I don’t know how I would have done it without you.
I would also like to thank my Beta Readers, some of whom read multiple drafts over the last eight years, all of whom made constructive observations, without any apparent reward. With sincere gratitude and love: Jeff Bartolomei, Eliza Bram, Karen Keighry, Felix Millar, Judy O’Donnell, Rowan O’Dowd, Jan Pietch, Marie Pirotta, Trish Rogers, Terry Ryan, Penelope Stevenson, and my dear friend, Jenny Thompson, thank you. Other advisors include Sarah de Jong and Nadine Cresswell-Myatt, Kerith Holmes, and Constance Fitzgerald. (If I’ve missed you out, accept my sincere apologies and let me know IMMEDIATELY!)
Much gratitude is due to the helpful librarians and Peer Learning Assistants at the University of Sydney. As a community member, I was able to record Milady with a peppercorn payment during the summer holidays of 2025.
And, now, if you see any typos or egregious errors, please let me know. I can’t help the mistakes in the audio but I can correct the text and improve any further incarnations. You will let me know what you think, of course, and perhaps there will be discussions in the comments about survival in the seventeenth century, storytelling, and the feminist gaze. I do hope so!
The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844.
The Count of Monte Cristo was originally published in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Serialization ran from 28 August 1844 to 15 January 1846.
My sister Jane recently told me about Amor Towles. I found The Lincoln Highway in the library today. I’m only about a third in but I thought you’d appreciate this interesting observation about long-form fiction.
The first time Woolly heard The Count of Monte Cristo, he must have been younger than Billy. His family was spending the summer of the camp in the Adirondacks, and every night his sister Sarah would read him a chapter before he went to bed. But what his sister was reading from was the original book by Alexander Dumas, which was a thousand pages long.
The thing about hearing a story like The Count of Monte Cristo from the one-thousand-page version is that whenever you sense an exciting part is coming, you have to wait and wait and wait for it to actually arrive. In fact, sometimes you have to wait so long to arrive you forget that it’s coming altogether and let yourself drift off to sleep. But in Billy’s big red book, Professor Abernathe had chosen to tell the entire story over the course of eight pages. So in his version, when you sensed an exciting part was coming, it arrived lickety split.
I hope you come along for the next few months as the young Milady comes of age, perhaps not lickety split, but with requisite twists and turns we may explore what it is to live in a convent in the seventeenth century, to worship as a Catholic, and to hope, wish and dream so much that it’s inevitable that Anne …
Ah, that would be telling.
Hopefully I will not include as much background as Victor Hugo does in Les Miserables. I have still not gotten over the bog-wallow of detail that was his account of the Battle of Waterloo. Les Miserables was serialised from 1862 to 1867.
And the adoration and retelling of Monsieur Dumas’s (and Maquet) work continues apace. What will the modern camera make of the greatest revenge tale ever told?
Of course I will attend the new film (2024) but, I’m sorry, what a waste to burn all that story in one go (even if it is nearly three hours long!) and I will faithfully report my response in these pages.
BUT WAIT! There IS a version listed as a tv mini series with 18 eps so far. Also made last year, this version has time to spare.
Have you seen this, or the film? What do you think? Do you think Sexy Lexy would approve?
And what do you think of serial novels in this day and age? If you’re interested you might like to try Eleanor Anstruther’s Fallout, or Ben Wakeman’s The Memory of My Shadow.
And a final burning question about MILADY, is one episode a week the correct number?
Charmed milady, charmed. louiselle x