Excerpts from Chapter X 'The Moonstone' [text]
This excerpt from All the Year Round alludes to a number of sources, of varying genre. There is the scientific "lecture on physiology" ("All the Year Round" 100), which is referenced and cited twice, and the reference to Confessions of an English Opium Eater (101). Upon first glance there is a blurring of genres, between the sensational Confessions and the realistic science lectures. However, the reference to Confessions of an English Opium Eater creates an interesting dynamic between another commonly found material in British newspapers of the Victorian period: the agony column (Rubery 51). Like the agony column, Confessions was published anonymously, and was based upon scandalously biographical experience. Such "tales of personal distress" (51) soon found their way into the advertisements of British newspapers, and quickly became "a meeting place as much as a marketplace for readers" (50). Rather than sensational, Rubery argues that influence of newspaper articles, agony columns, and advertisements is more a "shock of actuality" that stems from the "relevance, accuracy, and ... realism" (48).
All the Year Round
This image is an article that came after Chapter’s Eight and Nine of the Moonstone titled the Language of Animals in All the Year Round. The article tries to determine whether animals have languages similar to humans by looking at the sounds that certain species make towards each other. The writer sensationalizes the Arabian Nights stories written in 1706, which are a collection of Middle-Eastern, West Asian and South Asian stories. The writer commends the work calling it “a fascinating book that should be read from beginning to end” (AYR 152). The publication praises the work of another culture, but inherently modifies the stories intent because the writer casts a western viewpoint and understanding of the text to try and determine if animals have a language. The ideas brought forth by a foreign work are praised in the publication, but are still considered abnormal because a western man need’s to modify and change the idea to fit a western audience, deeming the culture as disabled. Because of their inability to achieve the norm without the help of a Western explanation of the text, made by a white male western man, the culture is considered Culturally Disabled.
This image contains the article “The Devil Tree” in the Harper’s Weekly publication. The article discusses the people of Zanzibar, Tanzania in Africa and a certain cultural practice they perform. The people of Zanzibar believed they could exercise evil spirits from afflicted people called Imps by binding them to a piece of iron, glass or other such object. Once the Imp was bound they would hang the object in a tree, trapping the Imp there forever. The people of Zanibar’s system of belief is sensationalized as no more than an interesting story of a savage people’s, making their home seem like a wild, uncivilized, unkempt land. The writer gives no context as to how this cultural practice came about and does not question why the people believe in the Devil Tree. The writer only give’s the reader the sensational negative and scary aspects of the practice (i.e. focusing on a man who clubbed his wife to death. He is hanged and the imp is exorcized). The writer and publication represent the people of Zanzibar and their culture as disabled due to the focus on the negative and horrid aspects of the practice rather than actually trying to determine why it takes place at all. This would have given the reader a negative outlook on the Indians represented in the chapter's 8 and 9 of the publication.
Harper's Weekly
"Double Allegiance" and "Englishman Upon Ireland" [Text}
This image contains two articles found before the moonstone in the January 25th edition of Harper’s Weekly. The two articles discuss political policies in England. The article “Double Allegiance” discusses the absurdity of England’s allegiance laws where a child can be hung for treason if they fight against England for an opposing force in war even if the man was born in England or a colony then left immediately after their birth. The writer of “Englishmen upon Ireland” discusses Irelands want to separate from the English empire. The writer[s] of both articles reinforce England’s Cultural Disability from America’s perspective because the writer[s] point out the absurdity of these cultural practices. Because America did not adhear to England’s ideal’s on the represented cultural practices they talked negatively about them giving the reader a negative outlook on their culture. England is represented as Culturally Disabled by pointing out the flaws in their political policies and connoted how America was much farther ahead in terms of these polices than what England was achieving or hoped to achieve.
Title Page of Chapter's VIII and IX of "The Moonstone" [image]
This image is the title page of Chapter’s Eight and Nine of the Moonstone in the Publication Harper’s Weekly. Harper’s is able to compare and contrast different cultures using dark and light images. The foreign culture is represented as three Indian men lurking in the darkness with dark, unrecognizable faces. The dark represents two things. The first is the unknown motivation of the characters. The dark conceals their faces hiding their intentions. Secondly, the dark or darkness is generally represented alongside the concepts of the unknown and the evil. The represented characters motivations are hidden from the reader and by using dark shading around the character’s faces and landscape, it portrays the characters and their actions as abnormal. Harper’s is able to influence the reader’s conception of Indian’s in a negative context by aligning them with the dark and unknown. When the image of the three Indian men is compared with the other two images on the page, the reader can see a contrast between the images. The Indians are dark, foreboding and unknown while Rachel Verinder, Franklin Blake (top right image) and Rosanna Spearmen (bottom center image) are clearly portrayed. Harper’s highlight’s the norm as something that can be perceived and understood by using images of the male and female English White body. The Indian’s are unknown and portrayed as people who are not like the norm making them Culturally Disabled.
Title Page of Chapter's XIII and IX of "The Moonstone" [Text]
This image is the title page of chapters Eight and Nine of the Moonstone in All the Year Round. All the Year Round formats the title page in a way that reinforces the idea of proper Englishness. Clear, clean text formatted symmetrically on the page emulates what All the Year Round perceives as the correct and proper way to publish work. What makes All the Year Round’s presentation different from Harper’s is the absence of images. They allow the reader to formulate their own assumptions of the people being represented in the text by not forcing an image of what they believe certain characters should look like. However, the reader’s opinion is held in a framework represented by the text because it is conducted by Charles Dickens. All the Year Round allows the reader to formulate their own opinion by not forcing cultural assumption’s on them, but those assumptions fall within the framework of what Charles Dickens allowed to be presented. All the Year Round still re-enforced their beliefs in showing how work should be presented, but they do not do it by negatively representing another culture.
Title page of "The Moonstone" chapter X, Harper's Weekly
In the American newspaper Harper's Weekly, chapter X is opened with this illustration of Franklin Blake reading. This visualization of Mr. Blake opens up certain visual tropes that Victorian readers will associate with sensation fiction (Leighton 71). Through this visualization, the opening of chapter X establishes a relationship between the reader's understanding of these tropes, and the expected genre to follow. In this case, chapter X opens with an iterative illustration, Mr. Blake's repeated reading of evidence, and pieces of information.
Wilkie Collins
Title page of "The Moonstone" chapter X, All the Year Round
In contrast to the illustrated opening on Harper's Weekly, All the Year Round featured a consistently uniform opening of Collin's text mingling with the opening of the newspaper. This uniform opening demonstrates an priority upon the material nature of the newspaper itself. The material in which to interpret genre then becomes the material of both the text, and the newspaper itself. The sensational columns of the Victorian newspaper provided a forum, in which "audiences encountered the voices of other readers or even actual readers themselves through direct correspondence and subsequent liaisons arranged through its columns" (Rubery 79). Rather than the sensationalization through illustration, the British reader is presented with a story that reads like many news stories of the Victorian newspaper. The lurid drama of crime, the scandal of the divorce court, and even correspondence via the personal advertisements, create this system of encountering voices. By mingling Collins text with the opening text of All the Year Round, the line of genre draws heavily toward the scandalous realism seen in Victorian news.
Advertisement in America: Harper Weekly July 11, 1868 [text]
"Queer Street" - Sensation Columns of All The Year Round [text]
The article immediately following The Moonstone chapter X, Queer Street, provides an example of the sensational columns in Victorian newspapers. While not an agony column, to contemporary readers Queer Street meant "an imaginary street where people in difficulties (esp. financial ones) are supposed to reside" (OED). Although an imaginary street, the details of this article reflect what Rubery argued with the idea of relevance, accuracy, and realism inspiring the sensational writers. Queer Street even seems rather aware of this contact, and its relationship to the dailies, as the speaker notes" "A man I know very well, and who knows me not at all" (103).
Front Page of All the Year Round, 8 August 1868 [Text]
This is the front page of the 8 August 1868 edition of All the Year Round. There is a marked contrast in the way that the American and the British front pages present the story; most importantly, All the Year Round emphasizes the story itself in a way that Harper’s Weekly does not. All the Year Round was a literary periodical, published by Charles Dickens himself, and so the emphasis on story is more natural than in Harper’s Weekly, which was more of a news periodical. The Moonstone also occupies the central place on the front page of the 8 August 1868 edition of All the Year Round. The Moonstone actually consistently appeared on the front page of All the Year Round, from January to August 1868, which one might attribute to the fact that Collins and Dickens were close friends, but Collins’ own name never actually appeared alongside the story, so Collins obviously did not receive any special attention from Dickens. All the Year Round emphasizes the story itself above all else; the lack of images emphasizes the actual text over visuals, and even the layout of the text on the page makes the story more readable, and more accessible, than in Harper’s Weekly.
Front Page of Harper's Weekly, 8 August 1868 [Text]
This is the front page of the 8 August 1868 edition of Harper’s Weekly. Collins' “popularity [was such] with American readers that his name always appeared before any other novelist in Harper’s catalogues” (Leighton and Surridge 208), and such is also the case with The Moonstone. Collins’ name appears prominently at the start of the story, but not (unlike the British version) at the start of the periodical. Harper’s Weekly instead leads with the current news. They use the whole front page to illustrate the top news for the week of 8 August 1868, a flood in the Maryland area. These illustrations act as a sort of introduction to The Moonstone in Harper’s Weekly; specifically the illustrations of natural catastrophe on the front page ask readers to consider the outcome of the conspiracy around the moonstone in the novel, and to relate images of catastrophe to the conclusion of the novel, even if coincidentally (the editors obviously did not orchestrate a flood for literary effect). Leighton and Surridge would write that the images are “proleptic, anticipating the events of the letterpress to come” and intentionally guiding readers’ interpretations of those events (210). I will note also that the front page of Harper’s Weekly is generally less readable than the front page of All the Year Round: the page itself is too large, the text is too small, and the layout is too tight to encourage readers to actually read the whole installment, which adds to the idea that Harper’s Weekly is less interested in the story itself than All the Year Round.
"Who can tell!" in All the Year Round [Text]
This is the last paragraph of The Moonstone, as it appears in All the Year Round. I will mention again that the British version uses an exclamation point instead of a question mark in the last line of the novel, the effect of which is that the tone of the British version is more certain than the American version. This exclamation point seems to put to rest the story of The Moonstone: Collins frames the last line not as a question to the audience (“you can tell”), as is the case in Harper’s Weekly, but as an exclamatory statement, which necessarily excludes the audience (“no one can tell”). Collins simultaneously creates a carefree tone that implies future, unknown adventure. “Who can tell!” in the British version inspires readers to throw their arms up into the air, and leave The Moonstone on a contentedly mysterious note, not to seek moral enlightenment, as with the American version.
Collins, Wilkie
"Who can tell?" in Harper's Weekly [Text]
This is the last paragraph of The Moonstone, as it appears in Harper's Weekly. Harper’s Weekly advertises the story as “printed from the author’s manuscript”, but that is not strictly true. There is one notable variant in the American version, as opposed to the British: the American edition changes the punctuation in Collins’ original manuscript to “Who can tell?” with a question mark, instead of “Who can tell!” with an exclamation point. This question mark is almost certainly a purposeful change made by the American editors. I corresponded with the Morgan Library, in New York, which owns Collins’ manuscript, and I confirmed that the original uses an exclamation point (“Who can tell!”), and not a question mark. Thus some change was made sometime after the submission of the manuscript to its London publishers. There is a slight chance that the change was the result of a typographical error, but considering the fact that the American punctuation also appears in other editions, it seems unlikely. This seemingly small change significantly affects the tone of the whole novel, as the last line is the last impression the novel leaves with readers. There is a sense of mystery, and uncertainty, inherent in the question mark. This question mark also intentionally leaves the conclusion of the story open to interpretation, and in a way asks readers to make their own conclusions, within a moralistic intratextual context. Collins himself eventually edited the final line to read “Who can tell?”, as early as the 1871 edition. John Sutherland reproduces the question mark in the 1999 Oxford World’s Classics edition, based on the 1871 edition, and notes that “Wilkie Collins – writing twenty years later through his surrogate narrators” is the one who “can ‘tell’” (xv). Sutherland wonders whether Collins was “setting up a sequel with his teasing last question” (xv). I am not entirely sure why Collins would change the text to match the American version in 1871, but regardless, the text did witness a change in 1868, apparently not by Collins’ own hand.
This is the article that immediately follows The Moonstone in All the Year Round, entitled "Carnival Time in Britany". John Drew and Tony Williams, the editors of Dickens Journals Online, identify “Carnival Time in Britany” as a piece of travel-writing related to the subjects of “Christmas, New Year, Holidays and Seasonal Celebrations”, “France, Description and Travel”, “France, Social Life and Customs”, and “Travel, Tourism, Hotels, Resorts”. They ascribe the role of the author to Marguerite Agnes Power, a correspondent of Dickens’s, although Power’s name never actually appears alongside the article itself, as far as I can tell. This article adds to a tradition of story in the 8 August 1868 edition of The Moonstone, through the narrative style. “Carnival Time in Britany” is reminiscent of Collins’ fiction, and picks up on the promise of adventure in the last line of the British Moonstone. There is already a sense of adventure in the first line of the article, when the narrator enters “old quaint” French city of Nantes “escorted by a motley caravan of peasants”. This, and other, vivid images of exotic people and places in "Carnival Time in Britany" complement similar images in The Moonstone, without a moral undercurrent, as in Harper’s Weekly.
Unknown
This is the article that immediately follows The Moonstone in Harper's Weekly, entitled “Children's Selfishness”. Katie Lanning, like Leverenz, recognizes that “Victorian editors were ‘sensitive’ to the connections readers made between texts in an issue, and editors often carefully selected and arranged materials with those possible connections in mind (Lanning 15). Harper’s Weekly exploits the idea that “readers could collapse borders [between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of a text] as they explored ways to connect various texts into some meaningful pattern” (Lanning 17), and so not only asks the reader to make their own conclusions about the end of the story, but also looks to influence those conclusions, to shape readers’ interpretations of the story. “Children’s Selfishness” is a moralistic prose piece; the author starts with the idea that “a love of property is generally considered so harmless in a child that it is encouraged rather than controlled”, but goes on to advise that children should invest less in materialistic concerns, and learn generosity. This is a “useful lesson” than which “there are few lessons more desirable to be learned in early life”. Harper’s Weekly subtly connects the anonymous, selfish child with Rachel Verinder in The Moonstone, who even as a young woman of eighteen is consistently referred to as a child by the narrators, especially by Betteredge. Rachel initially seems too materialistic, but we as readers learn over the course of the novel that Rachel’s odd behavior after the theft of the moonstone is attributable to love for Franklin Blake, not selfish self-indulgence. Harper’s Weekly strategically uses “Children’s Selfishness” to convince readers that the change in Rachel’s character is one of the most important lessons of the novel, and simultaneously indoctrinates readers into a typically-American conservative reading of The Moonstone.
All the Year Round, The Moonstone, 1 August 1868. [text]
The last page of All the Year Round’s publication of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone does not surprise the reader with any interesting images or foreshadowing illustrations. This is especially interesting when considering the fact that this page contains the revelation readers have been awaiting for months; Godfrey is the thief! This climax is realised only in the text itself. As mentioned, there are no images at all throughout the publication, and even the placement of the text sullies the big reveal. The thirty-first installment of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone is followed immediately by an article titled ‘BEAVERS’. The readers’ eye goes directly from ‘GODFREY ABLEWHITE!’ to ‘BEAVERS’ with little more than a small dividing line to separate these two proclamations. While the inconspicuous title of the next article does seem to be commonplace in weekly journals, its presence here only heightens the underwhelming nature of how Collins’ narrative is presented in All the Year Round. All the Year Round appears to be entirely interested in promoting itself as a journal, rather than advertising its necessary contributors. This is especially evident when compared to Harper’s, which took nearly every opportunity to at least make the first page engaging. The commodity focus of All the Year Round is particularly thought provoking when considering the fact that Dickens was an author himself. It is strange that someone who has gained fame from publishing periodical works would be so uninterested in adequately displaying other authors’ texts, and rather would utilize their place in the print industry to further their own reputation.
Almost indistinguishable from the pages before, the sixth and seventh pages of All the Year Round’s The Moonstone do little to stimulate the imagination or attention of its readers. It is important to note that page 172 and 173 were missing from the source, however, it seems hard to believe it would make much of a difference having those pages present to analyse, given the mundane similarity between those remaining. However, it is interesting to consider how those pages and what they contain might affect an examination of the publication. While there are surprisingly no advertisements on these pages, the focus on the journal itself as a commodity is once again apparent. The lack of images in this story suggests a concern regarding monetary gain and material value that is not as evident in Harper’s Weekly. All the Year Round appears to be interested primarily in making money, and the publication and display of individual works seems to take a backseat in terms of importance.
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.
Title Page for The Moonstone in Harper's Weekly [text]
This is the title page for The Moonstone in Harper’s Weekly’s, May 30, 1868 instalment. On this page we see two illustrations taking up a good portion of the page. In the title of The Moonstone, the words “RICHLY ILLUSTRATED” are presented as almost as big as Wilkie Collins’ name. This could show the level of importance illustrations are to Harper’s magazine. We see this importance of illustration also in the advertisements in Harper’s Weekly. One picture depicts Franklin Blake discovering his nightgown after reading the instructions from Rosanna’s letter. In the second illustration, we see Limping Lucy giving Franklin Blake a look of disgust, while some article of clothing hangs up to dry in the background. In both illustrations, a good amount of focus is on these articles of clothing. Katie Lanning explains how advertising before the use sensational writing, was “largely straightforward and informational, void of sensation and affect” (13). After sensation writing came out, advertisers would try “mimicking the form of sensation writing” (13). By mimicking the sensational novels, advertisements aimed less at the instruction of the product, and more towards trying to catch the readers eye and attention through sensation and affect. This type of advertising was known as “sensational advertising” (13). We see sensational advertisements in Harper’s Weekly, as their advertisements are filled with pictures and words of different sizing and fonts.
While the text itself of the second and third page of All the Year Round’s publication of The Moonstone does not differ much from the second page of the same publication in Harper’s Weekly, the display of the journal on these pages do contrast with one another. Unlike Harper’s, All the Year Round displays Dickens’ name (‘Conducted by Charles Dickens’) in the corner of every page of text. There are no images, and paired along with the title page before it, the alluring draw of the story present in Harper’s is entirely non-existent.
Title Page for The Moonstone in All the Year Round [text]
Here is the title page for Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone, in All the Year Round. Unlike Harper’s Weekly, All the Year Round does not have illustrations incorporated within its text. Although there are no illustrations, All the Year Round still has “sensational advertising” and can be tesesllatedly read. In this May 30, 1968 issue of All the Year Round, the advertisements and short stories that follow The Moonstone, have similar concepts to The Moonstone. For instance, one story titled, “The Lake of Pitch,” had a man who was cautious around the pitch, because when the pitch gets too much moisture, it softens and could swallow a person. We see this same situation with Franklin Blake when trying to dig the metal case out of the quicksand. The tessellated reading between these two stories have the identical situation of a man afraid to get sucked into the ground. The advertisement right after The Moonstone, titled “Nothing Like Example,” uses the topics of death, suicide, and murder to sell a news vendor’s shop. We see these topics come up in The Moonstone.
"Weigh it in your hand, sir," she said to the Sergeant. [image]
In the ninth serial part of The Moonstone, Mr. Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff travel to the nearby town of Cobb’s Hole to pay a visit to friends of Rosanna Spearman. While the journey is not far in distance, it is worlds away from the genteel setting of the Verinder estate. The Yollands are a lower-class family, but Betteredge maintains that they are “respectable, worthy people” (124) and “a credit to the neighbourhood” (124). His verbal approval of the Yollands is undercut almost immediately when he calls explicit attention to his need to translate Mrs. Yolland’s lower-class Yorkshire dialect into “the English language” (125)—distinguishing between the proper English and the social “Other” in the scene. Harper’s Weekly picks up on Betteredge’s hypocritical stance towards the impoverished lower classes. In this serial part, a large illustration of Mrs. Yolland and Sergeant Cuff is positioned in the bottom-right portion of the first page. The scene is claustrophobic and darkly shaded, with Mrs. Yolland crouched in a submissive position in front of and below Sergeant Cuff. Sergeant Cuff stands erect and holds his hat behind his back like a proper English gentleman. In his other hand, Cuff appears to be extending his hand to aid Mrs. Yolland, but a closer look shows that he holds a chain between his fingers. The presence of the chain is explained in the story’s discourse (128) but because of the image’s size and shading relative to the verbal text, it takes a prominent position on the page of Harper's Weekly. This image functions proleptically to direct the reading of the verbal text. Before the reader learns the identity of the woman in the scene, he/she perceives that she is impoverished, lives in bleak and cramped quarters, and is subservient to the middle-upper class English gentleman. Works Cited Collins, Wilkie. “Chapter XV.” The Moonstone. Ed. John Sutherland. New York: OUP, 2008. 199-132. Print.
All the Year Round, The Moonstone Title Page, 1 August 1868. [text]
The All the Year Round title page for Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone serves as the main point of comparison and contrast to Harper’s Weekly. This journal is concerned entirely with its own reputation, harnessing not only the fame of Dickens’ to propel it into further success and increased readership, but also exploiting an unrelated Shakespeare quote to elevate All the Year Round above any other journal. Catherine Waters, in her book mainly discussing Dickens’ other weekly journal Household Words (which took its name from a Shakespearean quote), asserts that “the material form is certainly not attractive [...] boldface capitals linking the title to the concluding announcement that the 'weekly journal' is 'CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKEN.'S [...] a form of branding that capitalized on Dickens's reputation and resembles the rhetoric of authenticity established through stamps and seals used to verify patent-protected products in advertisement" (21). While Waters is not specifically discussing this page in her comment, the argument holds its validity. The journal’s title as well as Dickens’ name are capitalized and much larger than that of The Moonstone. Furthermore, Collins’ name is not even mentioned, only identifying him as “the author of “The Woman in White,” &c &c”, perfectly illustrating the unimportance of the individual author and his or her story in Dickens’ journal. Waters, Catherine. Commodity Culture in Dickens's Household Words: The Social Life of Goods. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Co. 2008. Print.
All the Year Round, a weekly journal published in England by Charles Dickens, featured an unillustrated version of The Moonstone. Each installment of the story was released in plain text in standard magazine or book format with double panelled pages. The title from the periodical, heads the first image in this exhibit, introducing the issue. Directly under the title of the weekly journal is the title of the current installation of The Moonstone. That The Moonstone is the first story in the periodical shows that it is one of the most prominent works in the issue. The title of the Moonstone itself is in a large, capitalized, font that echoes the style of the journal title and separates it from the titles of other pieces included in the publication. Its brief description is mildly stylized and spatially laid out to draw attention to the title where every other part of the page is densely packed with text. This description also mentions a previous work of the author (not mentioned by name), “The Woman in White”, to draw on his previous reputation and state the authenticity of the story’s source (All the Year Round) to make it more marketable, given “the lack of international copyright law” (Leighton and Surridge 208) at the time.
Harper's Weekly: Advertisement Pages [text]
FIG. 1. Harper’s Weekly, certainly, was well aware of the diversity in individuals that purchased their newspaper. This can most readily be seen in the advertisement pages. The first page of advertisements is filled with an assortment of objects related to all things literary; everything from “golden pens, pen and pencil cases” and even an ad stating that “every man should own his own printer” can be seen. Furthermore, the assortment of journals, novels, and guides for sale cannot be overlooked. These guides cater to all, from “Essays for Young Men on the Errors and Abuses Incident to Youth and Early Manhood” to an “Illustrated Guide to the Flower and Vegetable Garden” to “Two Paths in Womanhood.” Clearly, the diversity in both the class and gender of the Victorian newspaper reader was vast. Notably, many of the journals offered are free of charge. For example, the “Holiday Journal” filled with “large pages of parlour plays, games, experiments, problems and puzzles” can be delivered to one’s home free of charge. Similarly, the aforementioned “Essays for Young Men” is also provided free of charge. Certainly, the middle-lower class “new reader” would have been particularly concerned with such advertisements.We can assume that many publishers would capitalize on the growing readership of Victorians, in the form of reading materials becoming more readily available at a cheap or free price. Furthermore, the inclusion of such advertisements in Harper’s itself shows that the newspaper also was in high demand of middle-lower class readership, since others advertised similar minded works within it. FIG. 2. The second page of advertisements continues to follow the first. Though significantly less literary in nature, the second page does contain a few objects of literary importance. The inclusion of the “Patent Book Clamp” is particularly interesting. The clamp is said to combat “ruined books” by means of clamping one’s materials together under a convenient handle for carrying. This interesting advertisement illustrates a demand and interest of the Victorian reader for accessories related to printed material. It shows not only the popularity of cheaply printed novels, but importantly the diversity at which such materials are now available. Of course, the demand for the accessory would not exist without the demand for the object it is intended for. Lastly, Harper’s includes an illustration of a common “social problem” at the top of the advertisement page. The caption states: “The Street Car Question Again” and appears to outline problems associated with street car/railway etiquette. The image on the left details a group of men seated in the car while a young woman fails to find a seat. Notably, each of the men has a newspaper lifted to his face, reading on the car. As Altick notes in his book, “‘Railway reading’ was another influential [book] trade development” (301). Cheap reading material was born of railway travel, where one could read in relative peace, with respectable lighting, in order to pass the time. The illustration of such “railway reading” in Harper’s only further exemplifies the hold literature, news, and reading had upon the common Victorian. Alitck, Richard. The English Common Reader : A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1957. Print.
Harper's Weekly, The Moonstone, 1 August 1868 [text]
While the second and final page of The Moonstone installment lacks the allure of the title page that precedes it, it still remains clear that Harper’s focus is on the work itself rather than the journal or otherwise. Again, there are no advertisements present on the page or inserted in the text. While the title of the work and its author are not mentioned again on this page, Harper’s Weekly appears the same; modest text serving no purpose other than letting the reader know the journal they’re currently reading. The page is, essentially, a block of text, suggesting Harper’s counted on the title page of the text to allure readers. Certainly, the foreshadowing images would likely satisfy the initial attraction. Harper’s likely hoped that story itself, half of it having been written on the title page, would be enough to keep readers going to the end.
One more advertisement from All The Year Round
Advertisement for news vendor's shop from All the Year Round [text]
This is the end of The Moonstone instalment,in the All the Year Round. Right after The Moonstone, we see an ad for a news vendor’s shop. This advertisement differs from Harper’s Weekly, as it stays within the format of the non-illustrated All the Year Round. Even though this advertisement does not have any pictures, we still can see this as a “sensational advertisement,” due to the fact that it sparks interest in the reader and works on the reader’s emotions. This cheap news vendor’s shop is selling graphic wood cuts that illustrate situations that make people uncomfortable or grates against the norms. Some of these examples are murders, suicides, and women abuse. It is a very different way for news vendor’s to sell news, by showing graphics that are hard for the general public to look at. This does however, relate to The Moonstone, due to the fact that The Moonstone does raise such events to the general public, too, as we see with Rosanna’s death by suicide. As this advertisement focuses a good deal on suicide and murder, a reader might wonder if The Moonstone could present a murder later on, since they have already witnessed a suicide.
Cure for neuralgia and all nervous diseases
Scene in the Hospital for Incurables on Blackwell's Island [image]
This full-page image, “Scene in the Hospital for Incurables on Blackwell’s Island,” appears two pages after The Moonstone in Harper’s Weekly. In W. S. L. Jewry’s illustration, two American women aid a sick man as he lies in a hospital bed. His bed is in the foreground and is cast in a bright light so as to draw the viewer’s eye to the scene. One woman peels fruit for the young man while the second woman (who appears to be dressed in religious habit) reads to him at his bedside—nourishing both his body and spirit. In the background, a third nurse cares for a patient, while a second unattended patient peers towards the sick man with concern. While this image doesn’t visually signal its ties to the American nation, the accompanying title positions this scene within an American hospital. It is a scene that conveys empathy between genders, classes, and physicalities. This image works in tandem with the images on p. 1321 to frame Wilkie Collins’s story within the periodical. Both pages are dominated by images of Americans helping the less fortunate, and both critique the upper-middle class attitudes towards the poor that are represented in Chapter XV of The Moonstone. They function as nationalist propaganda by simultaneously criticizing the lack of empathy in the British class system (as represented by Cuff’s and Betteredge’s treatment of Mrs. Yolland) and falsely depicting “America’s precarious post-war national identity” (28) as unified and classless. Notes 1. See “George Washington and Relieving the Poor” in this exhibit Works Cited Leverenz, Molly Knox. "Illustrating The Moonstone in America:Harper's Weekly and Transatlantic Introspection." American Periodicals 24.1 (2014): 21-44. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
Jewett, W. S. L.
Harper's Weekly: Biographical Information and Image of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court [text and image]
A column featuring brief biographical information on the Justices of the United States Supreme Court.
Harper's Weekly, The Moonstone Title Page, 1 August, 1868. [text]
The first page of the Harper’s Weekly publication is modest in its attention to the journal itself. ‘Harper’s Weekly’ is seen in plain print at the top of the page, doing little more than reminding the reader in passing that they are reading this text within the journal. The focus of the page is undoubtedly The Moonstone. The title of the novel stands out against the rest of the smaller text on the page, and the author’s name is hard to miss directly below it. Immediately, the reader knows what they are reading and who has written it, they also become aware of other texts by said author, boasting Collins’ own success. The title, however, pales when compared to the two illustrations on the page. Harper’s notes that this narrative is ‘RICHLY ILLUSTRATED’, and rightly so. The top-left image shows (presumably) Blake speaking to Gooseberry, while the bottom-right displays the climax of the installment – the death and reveal of Godfrey Ablewhite. Not only do these images effectively draw the reader into the narrative, they excite Harper’s audience by showing what is in store for them if they choose to indulge in Collins’ story. In short, almost no emphasis is placed on the journal, and it appears that every penny spent in printing was done so in an effort to advertise Collins’ work.
Seamstresses Wanted advertisement in Harper's Weekly [text]
This is an advertisement from Harper’s Weekly, looking for workers who know how to use sewing machines, or have a general knowledge of sewing. There were a few different clothing advertisements in this issue of Harper’s. They might have been placed there by coincidence, however, if we look at the other advertisements and Katie Lanning’s article on “tesselated texts,” we can make a pretty legitimate assumption that these advertisements were strategically placed where they are. Can these advertisements be read as “tessellated” with The Moonstone? How does clothing relate to The Moonstone? How important can clothing be in The Moonstone? Extremely, as in this instalment, while Franklin Blake and Betteredege are trying to solve the crime of the Moonstone, they end with finding the thief’s nightgown- Franklin’s nightgown. In the illustrations of this part of The Moonstone, the objects that stand out the most, besides the people, are the articles of clothing. In the first illustration, Franklin is realizes that it was in fact his nightgown with the paint smear. In the second illustration, there is a shirt randomly hanging up in the background. Where would a reader previously have seen pieces of clothing as prominent as in this story? That’s right, in the advertisements.
Pipes Advertisement in Harper's Weekly [text]
In Harper’s Weekly’s May 30, 1868 issue, the reader sees an advertisement for tobacco pipes, pipe repairs, and pipe holders. This advertisement is an example of “sensational advertising” as we see that the advertisement can catch the reader’s eye with the illustration of the pipe presented. We can do a tessellated reading between this advertisement and The Moonstone in this issue of Harpers. As the editor probably already knew, pipes are a great advertisement to have the reader’s view before reading The Moonstone. In this instalment of The Moonstone, the story begins with Franklin Blake walking up to Betteredge, while he is reading Robinson Crusoe. It does not specify that Betteredge was smoking his pipe. However, Wilkie Collins has trained his readers to recognize Betteredge, his pipe, and Robinson Crusoe as a trinity. Betteredge is the man who smokes a pipe while reading Robinson Crusoe; Robinson Crusoe is the book that Betteredge reads while smoking his pipe. You can’t talk about Betteredge and Crusoe without thinking about his pipe, which is why the pipe advertisement is a very strongly placed advertisement. Now whenever the reader thinks of Betteredge and Crusoe, the reader will think about the pipe and the pipe advertisement that they just saw a couple pages back.
Harper's Weekly: Journal of Civilization (Text)
Comparatively, the week the same section of “The Moonstone” appeared Harper’s Weekly, an American publication, it was featured alongside several references, either textual or imagistic, to the now commonplace epistolary lifestyle. The opening page is comprised almost entirely of a image depicting the “Dead Letter Office” a place where the lost letters of the American postal service were laid to rest. The image alone reveals a pile of letters, offering a visual image of what will later become prominent in Collin’s text, but also highlighting the popularity of epistolary correspondence. The article that accompanies the image begins “Out of the 462,279,719 letters which annually pass through the United States mails, 4,306,508 are misdirected or unpaid and go to the Dead-Letter Office at Washington.”
George Washington and "Relieving the Poor"
Image of George Washington + 2 smaller images both entitled "Relieving the Poor." Published in Harper's Weekly, 29 February 1868.
Harper's Weekly: Page Featuring The Moonstone [text]
As Loesberg writes in her essay titled “The Ideology of Narrative Form in Sensation Fiction”: “Class fear was distinctive in this period” (118). In such a rapidly changing world, middle-lower class individuals encroaching on the practices and lifestyles of the elite members of Victorian society was a real fear. As Altick points out, initially, lower class individuals were discouraged from education and literacy due to these class fears. However, with increased commerce and industry, it was discovered “A reasonable bit of elementary schooling made better workers” (Altick, 142). Thus, the lower-middle classes begun to experience an increase in literacy. As a result, periodicals and newspapers alike capitalized on a new type of readership. In response, the sensation novel was born. The Moonstone, featured on this page, in many ways comments upon a fear of the lower-classes and vapid social change during the era. A major theme in the novel is a “loss, shift, or reversal of identity” (Loesberg, 129). Throughout the book, the intentions of upper and lower class individuals are questioned: such as Rosanna Spearman and Rachel Verinder. In the end, the “false identity” of Godfrey Ablewhite proves to be the cause of the moonstone’s disappearance. Perhaps, though, the moonstone itself represents a loss of identity so commonly introduced in sensation fiction. The loss of the precious stone could come to represent the loss of British identity and the mixing, blurring, and mingling of social classes during the era. Regardless, the inclusion of The Moonstone into a sensationalized newspaper such as Harper’s Weekly again only caters to the new, common reader. The theme of shifting or misleading class identity is one the middle-lower classes would have sympathized with and found enjoyment in reading. Loesberg, Jonathan. "The Ideology of Narrative Form in Sensation Fiction." Representations 13 (1986): 115-38. Print. Alitck, Richard. The English Common Reader : A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1957. Print.
Collins, Wilkie.