First page of All the Year Round, no. 462 [text]

All the Year Round—a London-based periodical edited by Charles Dickens—was marketed as a literary journal that would “assist in the discussion of the Social Questions of the Day” (“New Readerships”). While it purported to be a journal for “all Classes of Readers” (“New Readerships”), the initial advertisements for the journal foregrounded its links to high-brow culture. Not only was All the Year Round compiled by a distinguished contemporary author, its title was derived from a line in William Shakespeare’s Othello (c. 1603).¹ 

The header for All the Year Round no. 462 appears to contain only descriptive information for the periodical. However, it works on another level to establish its intended privileged readership and the object of its criticism. The quote from Othello is positioned before any other print in the periodical, and the line “Conducted by Charles Dickens” is separated from the rest of the text by virtue of its sans-serif font. The journal positions itself as a journal of Englishness by claiming inspiration from a canonized writer of England’s past while simultaneously solidifying its links with a contemporary literary icon. Moreover, All the Year Round reaches out to an educated and literary English audience. The Moonstone is the first piece in number 465 of All the Year Round and is positioned directly below the heading. However, Collins’s name is omitted and the author is instead listed as “by the author of ‘The Woman in White,’ &c. &c.” While this was certainly a stylistic convention of the day, and moreover, a marketing ploy within periodical culture, the omission of Wilkie Collins’s name signals that the journal expected its readers to be well-read in contemporary cultural and literary texts.

Notes
1. The title All the Year Round was advertised as a play on the line “The story of our lives, from year to year”, which Dickens attributes to Shakespeare (“New Readerships”). The full line is delivered by the eponymous character of Othello, and reads “Her father loved me, oft invited me,/ Still questioned me the story of my life/ From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes/ That I have passed” (1.3.127-130).

Works Cited

“New Readerships.” John Bull and Britannia [London] 16 Apr. 1859: 242. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. 1179-1251. Print.