Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1965 Three-Deckers and Installment Novels: the Effect of Publishing Format Upon the Nineteenth- Century Novel. James M. Keech Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Keech, James M. Jr, "Three-Deckers and Installment Novels: the Effect of Publishing Format Upon the Nineteenth-Century Novel." (1965). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1081. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1081 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been - microfilmed exactly as received 66-737 K E E C H , Jr., James M., 1933- THREE-DECKERS AND INSTALLMENT NOVELS: THE EFFECT OF PUBLISHING FORMAT UPON THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL. Louisiana State University, Ph.D., 1965 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THREE-DECKERS AMD INSTALLMENT NOVELS: THE EFFECT OF PUBLISHING FORMAT UPON THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulflllnent of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English hr James M. Keech, Jr. B.A., University of North Carolina, 1955 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1961 August, 1965 ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to express my deepest appreciation to the director of this study, Doctor John Hazard Wildman. Much appreciation is also due the members of my committee, Doctors Thomas Kirby, Esmond Marilla, Fabian Gudas, and Lawrence Sasek, for their numerous helpful suggestions. Special thanks are also extended to Mrs. Emsline Staples of the library staff of Louisiana State University. And finally, gratitude beyond measure is given to my wife, Nancy, for her endurance and dedication. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT......................................... 11 ABSTRACT............. iv INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1 CHAPTER I "Three Separate and Individual Wollumes" ......... 7 II Stretching the Subject to the C a n v a s ............. 6k III Two Three-Deckers: John Galt's Rothelan and William Makepeace Thackeray's Henry Esmond ....... 133 IT Novels on the Installment P l a n ................... 163 V "This Detached and Desultory Form of Publication" . 185 VI Two Installment Novels: Thackeray's The Virginians and Trollope's Framley Parsonage ................. 253 CONCLUSION . ......................................... 28U BIBLIOGRAPHY................................ 287 AUTOBIOGRAPHY......................................... 29U iii ABSTRACT Tha English reading public, during tha greater part of the nineteenth century, encountered a new novel in a different format from the compact one-volume book of today. The latest in original fiction then appeared in three forma: the three-decker, a set of three post-octavo volumes sailing for a guinea and a half; the part issue, the aggregate of several weekly or monthly installments; the magazine serial. Novelists, working under artistic limitations completely unknown today, were forced to accommodate their work to tha three acceptable publishing formats, enlarging, squeezing, or pruning their material to make it fit. Examination of the nineteenth-century novel in relation to these publishing forms, their history, development, and effect upon specific novels, reveals that they profoundly influenced the size, structure, contents, and artistic technique of the novel. Contemporary critical consideration of these effects is brief and scattered; but the corre­ spondence, memoirs, and commentary of nineteenth-century novelists and publishers, and the internal evidence provided by the novels them­ selves, collectively illustrate the problems of writing for carefully specified publishing formats. The three-volume format, created by the success of Sir Walter Scott's novels in this form, was favored by the circulating libraries; iv and their immense purchasing power caused publishers to demand that authors supply novels in three volumes. The nine hundred pages, or approximately 167,000 words, necessary to fill these volumes ware obtained by multiplication of characters and subplots, elaborate de­ scriptions, digressions, superfluous dialogue, and the ingenious tricks of the printer. The three-decker frequently followed a sort of three-act structure, and it often dealt with a specialized subject matter designed to appeal to the subscribers of the circulating libraries. The part-issue novel, originated by Charles Dickens in the early 1830*s in an attempt to offer novels to the public at a cheaper price, and the serial novel, which became a significant vehicle for issuing novels with tha appearance of the shilling magazines in the late 1850's, were even longer than the three-decker. Often extending to 31*0,000 words or more, installment novels were also padded with unnecessary characters, episodes, and wordy digressions. The set length of their component parts and the necessity of a climax in every issue frequently rendered them episodic. Often such novels ware hurriedly and carelessly written. Frequently composed piecemeal during the course of publication, they offered novelists the oppor­ tunity to accentuate elements which stimulated sales and to satisfy an appreciative public's expression of the desired treatment of character and plot. In addition, subtlety in characterization was often sacrificed to the exigencies of installment publication. These three publishing formats exerted an influence upon the novel for almost three-quarters of a century. Although the serial, appearing in a magazine which offered the reader more for his money, had put an end to the part-issue novel by the 1880's, the three- volume format and the serial existed as important formats until the early l89Q,s. Only than, with the successful establishment of the one-volume novel, was the novelist offered the artistic freedom to control his material as he desired. An awareness, therefore, of the unique writing requirements of the nineteenth century and the affects they had upon its fiction can open new avenues of critical evaluation of the novels of the last century. WTRODUCTIOM Daring the greater part of the nineteenth century, the English reading public encountered a newly-pnbllshed novel in a format qalte different frost the compact, and usually sons what short, one-volume novel of today. Victorians who desired the latest In original fiction coaid purchase their novels in three forms, two of which ore unknown today. For the wealthy who wanted bound volumes, there was the three-deckert a three-volume set of small, post-octavo volumes, resembling bound quality paperbacks of today, whioh sold for the handsome price of a guinea and a half for the set. For those who could afford only a shilling a month, there was the novel Issued in monthly parts: a sort of literary installment plan in which novels were published in piecemeal fashion, eaoh installment consisting of three or four chapters appearing monthly over a period of from nine­ teen to twenty-four months. Finally, there was the mags sine serial, which was published in monthly magaaines priesd at a half crown in the I81t0*s and at a shilling by the late l8$0*s* ultimately the serial novel found its way into weeklies selling for pennies. Publi­ cation in the one-volume format of modern times was extremely rare, and it was usually confined to the cheap reprint, appearing usually two to three years after initial publication of the work, or to "certain special types of novels, perhaps less likely to find favor 2 with library subscribers — religious novels and talas intended to appeal to younger aa well as older readers."1 Each of these three methods of publishing original fiction had its effects, rather profound effects, upon the contents of the novel of the nineteenth century. The novelists of this century were forced to be more ooaewrcially oriented than are, perhaps, the novelists of todays wany novelists could have answered the charge that they wrote aerely for nooey in the fashion of Trollope who, having been so accused, replied cordially, "Of course I do . ."^ Certainly these novelists worked under artistic linltations completely foreign to twentieth-century novelists. That they aocownodate their novels to the three acceptable publishing f ornate was Mandatory. Publishers, lending libraries, and the public desanded that they do so. Thus the nineteenth-oexitury novelist was forced to enlarge, squeeze* or prune his naterlal to fit the publishing form in which it would appear, and the result of these difficult processes of composition was a novel far different fros that which is encountered today. The effects of writing for a three-voluss fornat, for axanpla, produced a novel which was or appeared to be of great length — ob­ tained frequently by multiplication of characters and subplots, by elaborate descriptions, digressions and superfluous dialogue, by unabashed padding, by Ingenious printing tricks. This novel fre­ quently found Itself following a sort of three-act structure and often dealt with a specialised subject natter designed to appeal