Serial Novels

Serialized novels are novels published in installments rather than as a single unit. Historically, these installments were distributed in newspapers or magazines, but now they exist in many forms.

Historical

Publication

Convert page of Strand and insert here

Historically, serial novels were published in magazines or newspapers.

Popular classical novels which were published serially

Cultural Conceptions

The rise of the serial novel coincided - and perhaps partly caused - a recognition of the writer as artist. Prior to the serial novel, texts were often anonymously authored and publicly shared, and writers earned little money or recognition. However, with the serial novel, readers learned

Many classical authors are associated with the serial form, most famously Charles Dickens. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's initial Sherlock Holmes stories and Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

The serial novel developed its own (intentional and unintentional) style conventions due to the format of its publication. Cliffhangers at the end of installments are integral to cultivating reader interest. Due to stories' length and frequent lack of pre-planning historically, or mid-run extensions of stories, the plots of serial novels often were inconsistent in intensity and quality and contradicted themselves over time. Stories might end suddenly due to a publisher cut-off, causing an abrupt or unresolved ending, or might be drawn out extensively due to popularity, making them difficult to end neatly. Deus ex machinae are common among serial novels in part because of this. Serial novelists were also often paid by the word, incentivizing lengthy descriptions, dialogues, and plots.

Archives

The first 68 issues of The Strand, spanning 1891 to 1924, can be viewed as page scans or text files online in the HathiTrust digital library. The physical copies of these issues are housed in libraries of multiple American universities.[1]

Additionally, many Victorian serial fiction magazines are archived in the Internet Archive.[2] Magazines can be filtered by author, year of publication, and collection. Each issue is presented as a scan with page-turning functionality, below which is presented publisher and technological information. The University of Victoria also houses many virtual copies of Victorian serial novels.

The Dickens Digital Notes Project [3] is an archive-in-process of what survives of Charles Dickens's notes on his novels. Led by Anna Gibson and Adam Grener, the project began transcribing the notes of the first of the ten novels for which Dickens's notes survive, Our Mutual Friend, in 2017. The Manuscript History section logs the history of the notes and their study.

Contemporary

Serialized writing has seen a revival with the emergence of digital technologies and the Internet. In the modern cultural lexicon, the term "author" is primarily reserved for those who publish in book form (especially when printed, bound, and published through a traditional publishing house). However, aspiring authors frequently publish their content serially online for free, often through major social media sites or sites specifically for serialized fiction, such as Wattpad and Fictionpress. Fanfiction especially acts as a form of serial fiction, with authors publishing stories chapter by chapter online as they are written. Webtoons and Tapas similarly house manga and graphic novels, with the former also offering written fiction. Authors of popular online serials, like Worm and Homestuck, will often receive bids from publishing houses interested in publishing official hard copies of the serial, making virtual serial fiction a potential conduit to publication and fame.

Platforms for selling serial fiction have also arisen online. Some, like Plympton and the failed Amazon endeavor Kindle Serials[4], operate on pay-per-installment or book structures, while others like [readrooster.com Rooster] utilize a subscription model in the vein of many music and television streaming services (Serial Box is another popular serial fiction company which follows both models).

On occasion, traditionally-published authors have experimented with releasing serial fiction, including Margaret Atwood and Stephen King. Some, like King, choose to release online, but others have opted to return to the magazine or newspaper as a home for the

Serialization

Some Sources

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=strandmag