FRONT PAGE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND

All the Year Round, a British weekly literary journal owned and edited by Charles Dickens had clear signs of the intended readership. The First thing that the reader sees is a quote by William Shakespeare’s Othello. The lack of images and straight to the point narrative should already speak to the elites of society with the continued emphasizes of Dickens as the editor. Although literacy at this time is well over 55%, it is clear that the main focus is for the reader to interpret the characters within the text for their own.  

The two main differences between All the Year Round and Harper’s is the lack of images and writing in context with the government. The Journal goes right into The Moonstone and continues with short stories until the last two columns which are advertisements for narratives that will be included in the next issue. During this time in Britain, the idea behind national identities has already been established and solidified. Harper’s in the United States had the room to include more narratives that will help build up new identities after the Civil War. This can be related to the inclusion of The Moonstone chapter X and how it uses illustrations to represent different identities.  

Works Cited

Lemire, D. “A Historiographical Survey of Literacy in Britain Between 1780 and 1830”. Constellations, Vol. 4, no. 1, Jan. 2013: 248-261.