All the Year Round, A Weekly Journal

Overview

In 1859, All the Year Round was born as the successor to Charles Dickens’ earlier periodical, Household Words, after a legal disagreement between Dickens and his publishers. As sole proprietor of All the Year Round, Dickens acted as his own publisher and head editor alongside sub-editor, W. H. Wills, until 1870, when the periodical was inherited by Dickens’ son, Charley Dickens Jr.  Reportage and fiction published in its pages was heavily edited by Dickens to reflect a distinctly bright, Dickensian style and perspective.¹John Drew, “2011 Michael Wolff Lecture An Uncommercial Proposition?: At Work on ‘Household Words’ and ‘All the Year Round,’” Victorian Periodicals Review. The John Hopkins University Press, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2013, 302-310. Online Edition. Using this style, he successfully appealed to a family readership that included both the literary middle-class and the less-educated working-class.²Richard Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900. Ohio:Ohio State University Press, 1998: 347. Extremely popular, the periodical sold widely, including internationally in the United States.

Within the field of periodicals, All the Year Round played an important role in normalizing the serialization of literary fiction. Although early forms of serial stories had begun growing in popularity decades earlier, many were critical of its strong association with “penny dreadfuls,” and other forms of cheap, working-class literature.³Beth Palmer, “Prose” in Routledge Handbook to Nineteenth-Century Periodicals and Newspapers, New York: Routledge, 2016, 138-140: 139. However, because of Charles Dickens’ authority as a literary storyteller, his choice to serialize high-quality fiction in his journals allowed serialization to gain acceptance among middle-class readers.⁴Beth Palmer, “Prose” in Routledge Handbook to Nineteenth-Century Periodicals and Newspapers, New York: Routledge, 2016, 138-140: 140.

There was no standard list of items for inclusion in every edition, and amidst the median six items in each issue, All the Year Round also published poetry, politically-liberal narrative essays, and educational articles for laymen.⁵John Drew, “2011 Michael Wolff Lecture, An Uncommercial Proposition?: At Work on ‘Household Words’ and ‘All the Year Round,’” Victorian Periodicals Review. The John Hopkins University Press, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2013, 294. Online Edition. Usually, an episode from a three volume novel or long-form story (published in four or more installments) was prominently featured as the first article in each weekly issue of All the Year Round; however, many of its serial pieces can also be categorized as short fiction. In fact, on average, short fiction occupied five times more pages in All the Year Round than long-form fiction. This short fiction was designed to educate and provide respite from life’s harsher realities, and spanned genres from detective fiction to women’s love stories. As with long-form fiction, these stories were carefully selected on literary merit, and were often penned by highly-esteemed writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins. Once approved by Dickens, authors published in All the Year Round often became regular contributors, and some, acquaintances of Dickens, wrote stories entirely on commission.⁶“W.H. Wills to Patterson, November 3, 1859.” All the Year Round Letterbook, Press copies of letters by Charles Dickens, William H. Wills, Charles Dickens, Jr., 1850-59, California: Henry E. Huntington Library.

Despite its popularity, All the Year Round’s design remained plain and unillustrated for the first decade, largely in an effort to look professional.⁷Ella Oppenlander. Dickens’ “All Year Round”: Descriptive Index and Contributors List. Troy, New York: Whitson, 1984: 31. In keeping with this same goal, Dickens and his sub-editor, W.H. Wills, carefully examined paper purchased for printing to ensure uniform quality.⁸“W.H. Wills to Peter S. Fraser, February 28, 1860.” All the Year Round Letterbook, Press copies of letters by Charles Dickens, William H. Wills, Charles Dickens, Jr., 1850-59, California: Henry E. Huntington Library: 81. On the first page, its simple masthead included a bolded title, followed by the tag, “conducted by Charles Dickens.” Above this ran a quotation from Shakespeare: “The story of our lives from year to year.” Dickens eventually redesigned this masthead to feature large, elaborate typography and floral illustrations symbolizing the four seasons. For readers, the conservative appearance of All the Year Round was more than recompensed by the exciting fiction published therein.⁹Deborah Wynne. The Sensation Novel and the Victorian Family Magazine, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001: 24.