Finality, Imperialism, and Greed: A Digitization of the Transatlantic Moonstone

During the week of August 8^th,1868, the final installment of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone appearedin both All the Year Round and Harper’s Weekly magazines. American and English readers alike would have said goodbye to the serialized novel after following each installment for seven and a half months and finally find out the truth of the disappearance of the Moonstone. Though the series ends and there was no sequel to The Moonstone, the final line of the novel reads: “So the years pass, and repeat each other; so the same events revolve in the cycles of time. What will be the next adventures of the Moonstone? Who can tell?” (Collins 503). This ending suggests a continuation of the adventure and says that the diamond could potentially be stolen again. A reader may think that perhaps the diamond is not in its final resting place and it would curse someone else’s family. Readers would be finishing the novel but would have this probing question asking them to explore the possibility of the Moonstone adventuring again. Just as greed and imperialism tore the Moonstone away from its rightful place at the beginning of the novel, there is always a possibility that the same motives may take it from its place in India again. That is precisely what the end of the novel suggests to its readers. It forces them to consider that something like this could easily reoccur because greed and a desire for more money always exists.

In Harper’s Weekly, this possibility is reinforced by an image of the Indian men which reminds readers about the imperialism in the novel. There is also an article about selfishness in children and parenting tips to combat it, as well as a page of advertisements that advertise gold watches, investment into the railway, and tea and coffee. These messages found in Harper’s Weekly serves to promote consumerism as well as imperialism and greed. In All the Year Round, there are no advertisements or articles that discuss selfishness, but there is Charles Dickens’ retirement from public reading notice, so readers would feel a greater sense of finality. Harper’s Weekly enhancing the greed and imperialism of The Moonstone while All the Year Round is diminishing it is ironic because, according to Leverenz in "Illustrating The Moonstone in America: Harper's Weekly and Transatlantic Introspection," Harper’s Weekly was known to criticize British imperialism (24). The final installment of The Moonstone may feel more final for readers of All the Year Round as opposed to readers of Harper’s Weekly because of the lack of pictures, articles, and advertisements that enhance greed, selfishness, and imperialism. This serves to disagree with the Leverenz and Knox’s assertion that Harper’s Weekly critiques British imperialism because on August 8, 1868, it is in Harper’s Weekly where readers notice the imperialistic greed of the American public.

Works Cited

Callow, Simon. “Dickens The Performer.” Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians, 15 May 2014, https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/dickens-the-performer. Accessed 31 November 2019.

"Children's Selfishness." Harper's Weekly, 8 August 1868, pp. 503.

Collins, Wilkie. "The Moonstone." Harper's Weekly, 8 August 1868, pp. 501-503.

Dicken's, Charles. "Farewell Series of Readings." All the Year Round, 8 August 1868, pp. 216.

Harper's Weekly, 8 August 1868, pp. 511.

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.