The Transatlantic Moonstone: Part X

Wilkie Collin’s novel The Moonstone (1868) was published serially in both the United Kingdom in All the Year Round and in the United States of America in Harper’s Weekly. While the story remained the same in both publications the material published alongside it varied greatly. All the Year Round, Charles Dicken’s literary journal, featured various poems and short stories. While Harper’s Weekly featured lively advertisements, images, and various other columns The inclusion of these materials changes the interpretation of the text, manipulating readers to focus on different themes and social conditions. While both editions were widely successful, the material conditions surrounding the texts would result in it appealing to vastly different audiences. This worked as the United Kingdom and the United States were both in different social and political environments at the time, therefore it appealed to both audiences and found success.

In Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge’s “The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper’s Weekly” they argue that the images depicting plot point of The Moonstone contribute to the manipulation of audiences surrounding themes of domination, class, ideology, etc. and therefore “added an intricate visual layer to this already complex narrative structure” (210). Throughout the early 1860s the United States of America was dealing with a Civil War and Harper’s Weekly featured news regarding the political state of the country. The idea of ideology and domination is present within The Moonstone but surrounding ads discussing the president, congress, and the ongoing political battle in the United States of America bring that theme to the forefront of the novel. The lack of advertisements and political imaging within All the Year Round allows the audience to focus more on the story itself as it is the first text with short stories and poems coming after.

Leighton and Surridge argue that the illustration can create an “ideological distance between the reader and the imperial narrative” (213) and by looking at images present in part X of The Moonstone the narrative of domination is clearly present in the Harper’s Weekly edition and argues that the various intersection of domination through class and gender. Whereas All the Year Round focuses more on British ideology and eurocentrism, Harper’s Weekly offers a political critique of domination and ideology.

 

Works Cited

All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal 7 March 1868. Print

Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization 7 March 1868. Print

Leighton, Mary Elizabeth and Lisa Surridge. “The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper’s Weekly.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 42, no.3, 2009, pp.207-243.