Hurray for Serialized Novels!
Hillary Kelly writes: In 1847, an English cleaning woman was extremely excited to learn that the boy lodging in her employer’s house was “the son of the man that put together Dombey” — that is, the son of Charles Dickens. The woman could neither read nor write, but she lived above a snuff shop where, on the first Monday of every month, a community of friends would gather to read aloud the latest installment of “Dombey and Son,” which had begun serialization on Oct. 1, 1846. By that time, the monthly installments of Dickens’s novels — which started with “The Pickwick Papers” in 1836 — were such a staple of British culture that an illiterate woman with no access to the actual book knew the author’s work intimately.
“…the publishing industry is in the doldrums, yet the novel shows few signs of digging into its past…
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Author Adrienne Morris 
8 responses to “Bring Back the Serialized Novel”
Sherlock Holmes was serialized. I think serialized novels will increase circulation of newspapers.
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Dickens was hungry, literally. Bring back the hungry writer and maybe the prose will improve.
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I almost never read modern fiction. I don’t think the writing is terrible, I just hate cell phones and sexually liberated women talking trash ( my daughter sometimes reads chick lit). Okay, I know not all modern fiction is like that, but I find it hard to love modern characters (unless I’m watching season one of Friday Night Lights. :))
I do like popular history writing when it reads like fiction.
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The soaps have taken over
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And now reality tv!
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Interesting article, Adrienne.
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You’d be good at serialized novels! I’d read them.
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Thanks, friend!
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