Simone Marra

The task of comparing a part of Wilkie Collins The Moonstone from both the American Harpers Weekly and the United Kingdom’s All The Year Round brought about two very different readings. One of the most apparent distinctions was the presence of photographs. While Harpers Weekly was laced with find photographs and enhanced the passage of The Moonstone, All the Year Round was completely barren from any illustration of the events taking place within the section of The Moonstone that was published. The additions of the photographs not only warranted a different read of The Moonstone as the reader was able to visualize some pivotal scenes but considered with the advertisements also present in the same issue, the two together can raise some significant questions. While All the Year Round contained no photographs, it also contained little to no advertisement at all; in fact, some of the only advertising done was to announce new works coming up by Dickens himself. In contrast, Harpers Weekly was abundant in advertisements, and this enhanced the reading of The Moonstone as the reader was swept away into a world of ads right after they would have finished a section of the novel.

Section 8 of the novel had some particularly exciting advertisements that work congruently with the ideas brought up in the direct text — notably, the very othering of Rosanna Spearmen. Rosanna is directly outed in this section, the very image is specific when it says "Sergeant Cuff Looked Attentively at our Second Housemaid – at her face when she came in; at her crooked shoulder, when she went out," (109 Collins) having this image with the caption really shows how Rosanna is singled out due to her disability. A common theme throughout this issue of Harpers Weekly is the othering of women. At the end of the paper, the reader is met with an entire column dedicated to the “Witch Finder,” or the “Hunted Maid of Salem,” here the reader can hear about the gruesome and horrifying Salem Witchcraft Trials. Women were othered due to any abnormality, including physical, much like Rosanna. None of these ideas are prominent in All the Year Round.

The male dominance is more prevalent as articles that follow The Moonstone section are ones about eating horse meat or having affairs with foreign countries.

Harpers Weekly creates a narrative surrounding the othering of Rosanna, while all the year-round creates a male-dominated narrative where Sergeant Cuff is the focal point. Rosanna is almost an afterthought as the lack of images, and the influx of male-centred short stories surround Section 8, Chapters 13, and 14 of The Moonstone.