All the Year Round

“Victorian serial illustrations do not merely reflect or supplement the verbal text but constitute plot elements per se, thus profoundly affecting the narrative’s unfolding and meanings” (210). When compared with the Harper’s Weekly version of this portion of the text, a much different reading emerges from the stand-alone version of All the Year Round. The biggest difference is that you have to read the actual narrative to find out about the Indian and his questions for Mr. Bruff. As well, it lacks the emphasis placed on the transaction through the use of an image. Instead, the reader is at leisure to interpret the text how they will and imagine the characters in their own ways. This allows the reader more freedom in the narrative, as they are not forced to adopt the perception of somebody else in order for the text to make sense. Instead, they have to rely on the use of their own faculties to interpret the scene and the mystery remains more profound.

Works Cited

All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal. Edited by Charles Dickens, vol. 19, Chapman & Hall, 1868, London, p. 535.

Leighton, Mary Elizabeth, and Lisa A. Surridge. “The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, p. 210.