A while ago, I discovered the website 'Reading Like a Victorian', a digital humanities project from The Ohio State University and collaborators.
Since tumblr's been going through a bit of a serial-literature revival, I thought I would share...
Here are some extracts from the website's 'About Us':
RLV is an interactive timeline of the Victorian period. It focuses on serialized novels [...] and adds volume-format publications for context.
When we read Victorian novels today, we do not read them in the form in which they originally came out. Most Victorian novels appeared either as “triple deckers,” three volumes released at one time, or as serials published monthly or weekly in periodicals or in pamphlet form. Serialized novels’ regularly timed, intermittent appearance made for a reading experience resembling what we do when we are awaiting the next weekly episode of Game of Thrones, watching installments of other TV serials in the meantime. Whenever we pick up a Penguin or Oxford paperback of a Victorian novel today, we are engaged in the equivalent of binge-watching a series that has already reached its broadcast ending [and is] a very different experience from what Victorian audiences were doing with novels. Reading Like a Victorian reproduces the “serial moment” experienced by Victorian readers [...]
More info and screenshots and so on below the cut:
[...] if reading serial installments at their original pace is valuable, it is even more valuable to read them alongside parts of novels and of other kinds of texts that Victorian readers could have been following at the same time [...]
[...] a reader who, in 1847, had been following the part issues of both Dickens’s Dombey and Son and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and then picked up Jane Eyre, published in volume form in October of that year, might notice in Florence Dombey, Becky Sharp, and Jane Eyre a pattern of motherless or orphaned girls trying to negotiate a hostile world on their own. While this figure is well known to be a character type in Victorian fiction perfectly embodied by Jane Eyre and Florence Dombey, Becky Sharp does not often emerge among the heroines who fit that type; reading the novels simultaneously foregrounds parallels between Becky, Florence, and Jane that are not at all obvious if their storylines are experienced separately
I find that, for browsing, the website is easier to use on a computer or tablet than a phone, but it's ok on phone to search for something specific.
The timeline:
Here's what the timeline looks like:
It shows 12 months at a time, and using the left and right arrows will move you back or forward by a month. You can use the 'Jump To Date' function to navigate to a different twelve-month period. Or you can use the 'Author Search' function to navigate to particular works if you know the author's name.
In the above screenshot of the timeline, which shows the period January to December 1852, there are several works shown, including:
ongoing serialised works which had at least one installment published prior to 1852;
works which began serialisation during 1852;
works published in three-volume format during 1852;
other works published during 1852
Details about each work:
You can click on the bar that represents a book's publication to get a drop-down that provides information about that book, its publication, and links to help you read the relevant serial parts.
Here's what happens if you click on Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford:
On the left of the drop-down, there's some general information about the work, its publication history, and how to use the links.
On the right, there's information and links to help you experience the book in its serial parts: it separates out the parts, indicates the month and the year they were published, and what chapters of the work were published in that part. It also provides notes on each part where helpful. There is a scroll-bar at the right of the drop-down, so you can scroll down to the later installments of the work.
[I chose Cranford as an example as it helps demonstrate the value of the Reading Like a Victorian website... From what I understand, Gaskell initially wrote 'Our Society at Cranford' as a standalone piece of short fiction, but was encouraged to write more, so further pieces also set in the fictional town of Cranford were published intermittently in the same magazine over the next year or so. While a particularly dedicated Gaskell fan who wanted to 'read along' with Cranford following the original publication could probably search 1.5-years-worth of a weekly magazine to find the 9 issues which included the material which would later be published as Cranford, the Reading Like a Victorian website has already done that work for them... and also for anyone else who might be interested, but not quite that interested.]
The links
You can then click on an individual chapter to get links to various places to read it online:
When available / where possible, the website tends to include links to:
a facsimile copy of either the relevant serial part in the original publication, or in an 'annual' or similar volume collecting together the content of that publication, or a volume-form edition of that work if the work was not published serially or if facsimile copies of the original serialised publication are not available. [Most of the facsimiles are hosted by either the Internet Archive or the Hathi Trust Digital Library, but some are hosted as part of smaller, more specific collections, such as - in the case of Cranford - Dickens Journals Online which provides online access to the journals/magazines edited by Charles Dickens);
the text, usually on Project Gutenberg (this is usually the volume-form text, so the exact content and chapter breaks and so on may be different than originally published in serial parts; the Reading Like A Victorian website will generally explain when this is the case);
audio recordings, usually volunteer recordings from Librivox (again, the recordings are usually based on the volume-form text, so the exact content and chapter breaks and so on may be slightly different than originally published in the serial parts).
So yeah, I just thought it was a cool website and worth sharing. I believe the website is already used as a resource by some University courses and for academic research, but it can also be used by book clubs and to aid personal reading, etc. I'm using it to inform a personal reading project for 2024-26 where I follow along with six or seven novels serialised in 1864-66.
To save a scroll to the top, here's the link to the RLV website again: Reading Like A Victorian (osu.edu)
[If you want to join an already-planned read-along based on the original serialisation schedule, @dickensdaily will be doing Charles Dickens's historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty from mid-February 2024 to late-November 2024, to follow along with the original weekly publication of the novel in Master Humphreys Clock from February 1841 to November 1841. I personally found Barnaby Rudge a really engaging, thought-provoking read, and I'm really looking forward to reading it again. (Anyone with particular triggers or other reasons to be wary of the content or language used in older books may find it helpful to look up content warnings for the book before making a decision to read it.)]
Under the beautiful crescent moon, we will conclude our dramatic reading of Tempest in a Teacup by @thetempestcup . Our long running, much beloved serial finally comes to an end and no, we’re not crying--you’re crying!
So brew yourself a good cup of tea, hold your emotional-support lemur close, and settle in for the final reading of the night. In this segment, Zuko makes a life-changing discovery and as one tale ends, another begins.
Our final installment can be found here, on our linktr.ee. Have a suggestion or comment? Send us a dm on instagram, an ask on tumblr, or an audio message on anchor.fm. We may just feature you on our next podcast.
In honour of @dickensdaily running a serialisation from now to the end of November of A Tale of Two Cities, following the original 1859 publication dates, I've changed my icon:
[The image on the left is my old icon, of Eugene Wrayburn and Mortimer Lightwood cropped from an illustration by James Mahoney for the 1875 Household Edition of Our Mutual Friend. An arrow in the middle points to the image on the right, which is of Miss Pross and Mr Lorry, cropped from an illustration by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) for the 1859 'monthly parts' of A Tale of Two Cities]
If anybody would like to read along with the serialisation of A Tale of Two Cities, you can do so by signing up here:
The works of Charles Dickens as they would have been originally experienced. Click to read Dickens Daily, a Substack publication with hundre
(You may need to go to the archive to see the first few chapters, which have already been sent out, but future chapters will be sent to your email.)
I'll be reading each week's chapters on a Sunday. I'm just about to dive into this week's 📖🎉
Although we said we'd post this in December, some things need a little extra brewing. After much steeping, we are proud to present out podfic of (don't) follow me down by eleventy7.
Performed by our lovely @rideboldlyride, this fic is an elaborately flavored and layered Persephone/Hades AU. Please take the time to give both @tinyhistory and @rideboldlyride some love for their excellent work.
In the meantime, keep your head's up, teashop homies. We'll be dropping the next installment of our serial reading of Tempest in a Teacup by @thetempestcup sometime in the next weeks. We'll also be returning to monthly podcast episode soon as well. Until then, stay steady and don't forget to stay warm!
It's been a long journey. When we started this serial a little over 8 months ago, we never imagined that we would grow and learn so much. Or have so much fun.
But here we are, at the end of Tempest in a Teacup by @thetempestcup. This Monday, April 12th, we'll drop the final segment of our beloved serial. Listen as Zuko makes the discovery of a lifetime and Katara makes a decision that changes the world.
Just like a good cup of tea needs time to brew, our last serial installment is the most flavourful and thereby needs extra time to steep.
To give it all the dedication and quality it deserves we will be releasing it on April 23. As always thank you for tuning in! We are very excited to share this final cup of tea with our amazing listeners 🍵
2020 might be ending, but we haven't given up yet. Tomorrow, the latest segment of our serial, Tempest in a Teacup by @thetempestcup (AkaVertigo), drops. It will be our last reading of the year, but we're going out with a bang. Listen carefully for our new voices!
Later on today, our new segment of Tempest in a Teacup is going to be this week’s special blend!! We’re moving out of the angst of the story and into some of the sweeter elements. A new and very important character is going to be introduced, and we get to hear more of @doodleladi‘s darling Katara! Please follow along with @bulletproofteacup as she guides us on this tour through Tempest in a Teacup!
Keep a look out for this image with our links to the published episode later on this evening! The episode will be dropping at 9pm EST on Friday the 13th (insert spooky noises).
Please be sure to follow us on our twitter and Instagram to stay up to date with our latest news!!
