Jenny's exhibit

The transatlantic publication of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins was printed simultaneously in Europe and the United States of America in 1868. This publication process resulted in the creation of one novel with two different interpretations, based upon the surrounding texts and images that accompanied each publication. The version published in Europe was printed in Charles Dickens’s All the Year Round, and included only textual accompaniment in the form of stories, poems, and news to provide context and shape the reading of The Moonstone. Conversely, the publications released in America in Harper’s Weekly were vividly illustrated, and surrounded by eye-catching images and advertisements which function to influence the themes displayed in the novel, expressing the American ideology of the intersecting biases between race and class which create the designation of Other. Harper’s Weekly and All the Year Round both offer a critique of classism and Othering through the surrounding texts in conjunction with The Moonstone, but do so in very different ways. Harper’s Weekly expresses an American desire to designate people of lower classes and racialized backgrounds as Other in order to maintain the contemporary power dynamic and social structure, while All the Year Round instead suggests a desire for expanded social equality. This reading contradicts previous scholarship on the transatlantic publication of The Moonstone, but is nevertheless supported by textual evidence from July 11, 1868.

Molly Knox Leverenz suggests that the illustrations present in the American editions of The Moonstone manipulate the text to express American ideologies of the time, stating “the idea that The Moonstone, as it was read in Harper’s Weekly, is a purely English text because it has an English author is disrupted by its American illustrations” (22). She asserts that these illustrations function to reflect American criticism of British imperialistic practices, and condemn the colonial attitudes of England during the contemporary time period (Leverenz 22). This exhibit will demonstrate agreement with Leverenz’s assertions that the illustrations reflect social beliefs and norms of American culture, but will suggest that, within the context of part twenty-eight of The Moonstone, it is actually American classism and fear of the Other which causes the version in Harper’s Weekly to be read differently than the publications in All the Year Round.

Works Cited

All The Year Round, vol 20, Charles Dickens, July 11 1868, United Kingdom.

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Oxford University Press, 2008, New York.

Harper's Weekly, vol 12, Harper & Brothers, July 11 1868, New York City.

Leverenz, Molly Knox. “Illustrating The Moonstone in America: Harper’s Weekly and Transatlantic Introspection.” American Periodicals: A Journal of History & Criticism, vol. 24, no. 1, 2014, pp. 21–44.