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| January 1891 issue of All the Year Round |
When I teach the likes of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
to my undergraduates, I always encourage them to think about the way in which
these texts were originally published: not as weighty tomes, but in serial
form. Readers of periodicals such as
Master Humphrey’s Clock,
Bentley’s Miscellany,
Household Words, and
All The Year Round would follow stories in instalments over several months, and delighted in writing to the authors to outline their hopes (and fears) for forthcoming episodes.
Given this publishing history, it’s rather odd that we
now read these texts in single-volume form, paying little, if any, attention to
the original breaks in the narrative. The same is true when we approach the
numerous letters and diaries – both real and fictional – produced in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; we consume huge chunks at once without a
second thought for their chronology in terms of composition or publication.
If, like me, you’ve always fancied having a go at reading
one of these texts in the instalments in which it was first produced or
published, you’ll be delighted to hear about a recent project called Journal
Lists. Set up by Hazel Wilkinson and Will Bowers, this website allows you to
receive instalments of a variety of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works
straight to your inbox – and all free of charge.
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| Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips |
In January and February this year, I really enjoyed
receiving Byron’s Ravenna Journal day by day, and I can confirm that it really
makes a difference to read a text in this way. By consuming a text at a slower
pace, the reader has time to dwell on individual entries and consider details
that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. I
don’t think that I’d have noticed how miserable Byron was about the weather in
early January had I not been confronted with his lamentations each and every
morning. On 4 January, Byron complained ‘weather bad – bad as England – worse’,
while the next day he notes that it’s ‘dripping and dense’. 6 January sees ‘Mist
– thaw – slop – rain’, followed on 7 January by ‘rain – mist – snow – drizzle’:
you get the picture! Had I read through these entries quickly, I’m not sure that
I would have picked up on the length of time for which this bad weather endured, but
having to read Byron’s observations daily I found myself getting nearly as fed
up with the damp, gloomy conditions as he was!
I’m currently subscribed to John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar, which pings
into my inbox on the first of each month, and to William Cobbett’s Rural Rides. Daily issues of The Spectator and instalments of Dickens’s
Hard Times are currently going
strong. I’m very much looking forward to Mary and Percy Shelley’s Geneva
letters, which start on 17 May – I’ve already signed up for this one!
To explore the other texts available for subscription and
to find out more about this brilliant project, visit the
Journal Lists website.
