Victorian Newspapers, Journals, Ads, and Serial Fiction

Victorian Newspapers, Journals, Ads, and Serial Fiction Fritz Josephson Max Hoderlein Henry Myers

Background: Victorian Age • Has to do with the development of England during this time • Queen Victoria played a major role • Began well before Queen Victoria ascended to the throne • 1827 • Ended after she died in 1901 • Their momentum kept the progress going well into the 20th century • Religion • Commerce • Public Health • Culture

Writing • Literacy of the common man increased during this period, as educating children became the social norm • Victorian writers include: • Charles Dickens • Thomas Hardy • The Brontë sisters • The writing style was very ‘thick’

Serial Fiction • A story or play appearing in regular installments. • Modern: • Television • Radio • Magazine or newspaper • How did they work? • Popular novelists • Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad • Let out in pieces over a period of months • Affordable • Made low class literate

Great Expectations • Literature would be released monthly, weekly, or even daily • These were called installments • Newspapers, magazines, and books • When a book would come out with installments it was called a serial novel • Great Expectations, a very popular serial novel for that time, came out weekly in Dickens periodical: “All the Year Round” • Took more than a year for the entire book to be open to the public!

How did serials effect the production of plot in novels? • Cliffhangers • Extra information • Successful • Unfinished novels • Some serials would end in the middle of the plot • Unsuccessful • Death of the author

Broadside Printing • Large sheet of paper printed on one side only • Publicized: • Events • Meetings • Royal Proclamations • Advertisements • Ballads • Rhymes • News • Illustrations • Modern day: • Commercials • Yahoo! News • Television Example: A broadside of a Ballad Example: A broadside of a horse for sale

How were broadsides sold? How were broadsides made? Printing shops Took an order Newspapers much like today Printed Wooden Blocks Etched Ink Paper Example: Declaration of Independence

Periodicals • Periodicals are publications issued at regular intervals • Journals • Magazines • Newspapers • Serials • Scholarly Periodical • Original Research • Social Problems • Journal of Clinical Child Psychology • Popular Periodical • Current events • Interests • Newsweek • Glamour • Time • Trade Periodical • Information for a particular Industry • Restaurant Business • American Libraries

All the Year Round • Run by Charles Dickens • Focused on Serials • Great Expectations appeared in this periodical • Unfortunately Dickens was never able to produce enough to make his readers happy • Other periodicals had more information per issue • It was not very successful

First to publicize news which combined pictures with the news • Also the first periodical to give a weekly synopsis of the news • New articles every week based on what was happening • Weekly (1842–1971) • Monthly (1971–1989) • Bi-monthly (1989–1994) • Twice-yearly (1994–2003)

Punch • Punch, or the London Charivari • Utilized political cartoons and caricatures • Tried to express the views of the country as a whole

What was the role of satire in periodicals? • Satires were able to express grandiose ideas in a quick segment • Cartoons were often used as satire

What is Sensationalism? • Much like modern day tabloids • The periodicals over exaggerate on stories in order to draw people’s interest. • Often play to what the people want to hear: many vulgar stories

Penny Dreadful • Called a dime novel in America • Cheap • Cost one British penny • Fiction, over the top tales • Serial Novels • Main audience were young men • Lower Class Men • Usually only a few pages • Used as inspiration by later authors • Eventually died out • Reborn today by internet bloggers • Many times they were horror • Hence the name Penny Dreadful

String of Pearls • Sweeney Todd is the main character • Slits his customers throats • Mrs. Lovett bakes meat-pies out of the people • Sells them at her pie shop • Later turned into a broad-way production and into a movie • The Demon Barber on Fleet Street

What kind of news was a particular interest to the reading public? • Many people were illiterate • Those who were literate liked to read the weekly serials and stories • Had a particular interest in reviews • The upper class read the reviews and adopted the same opinions.

Satirizing in England “I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together. – Charles Dickens “I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.” – Charles Dickens (Chapter 38 of Great Expectations) “If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.” – Charles Dickens • Society • Social classes • Great Expectations • Rich people not being happy while poor people were • A Christmas Carol • Politics in General

Nobility, Dukes, Earls, Aristocrats, etc. Social Classes Doctors, Teachers, Lawyers etc. Blacksmiths, Chimney Sweeps, Brick Layers, etc.

Victorian Newspapers, Journals, Ads, and Serial Fiction