The Moonstone of the States - Prologue

As mentioned in the introduction, the British publication in which The Moonstone is printed in is smaller in size compared to what the Americans published it in, and also does not have the pictures found in Harper’s Weekly. The opening section of the prologue is held as a “ significant starting point for its intertwining of imperial and domestic plots for a number of related reasons” (Leighton and Surridge, 211). The Empire and domestic history is not of the United States, they thus would lack the connection to American audiences that British readers would have. With that lack of any historical tie to the events described, help would be needed to connect this audience across the Atlantic to the narrative.

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. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27760229.