Malgudi is a
fictitious town in
India created by
R.K. Narayan in his novels and short stories. It forms the setting for most of Narayan's works. Starting with his first novel,
Swami and Friends (1935), all but one of his fifteen novels and most of his short stories take place here. Narayan has successfully portrayed Malgudi as a microcosm of
India. Malgudi was created, as mentioned in Malgudi Days, by Sir Fredrick Lawley, a fictional
British officer in the 19th century by combining and developing a few villages. The character of Sir Fredrick Lawley may have been based on
Arthur Lawley, the
Governor of Madras in 1905.