The Plot Thickens: Illustrated Victorian Serial Fiction from Dickens to du Maurier

by Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Lisa Surridge

In the early 1800s, books were largely unillustrated. By the 1830s and 1840s, however, innovations in wood- and steel-engraving techniques changed how Victorian readers consumed and conceptualized fiction. A new type of novel was born, often published in serial form, one that melded text and image as partners in meaning-making. These illustrated serial novels offered Victorians a reading experience that was both verbal and visual, based on complex effects of flash-forward and flashback as the placement of illustrations revealed or recalled significant story elements. Victorians’ experience of what are now canonical novels thus differed markedly from that of modern readers, who are accustomed to reading single volumes with minimal illustration. Even if modern editions do reproduce illustrations, these do not appear as originally laid out. Modern readers therefore lose a crucial aspect of how Victorians understood plot—as a story delivered in both words and images, over time, and with illustrations playing a key role. In The Plot Thickens, Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge uncover this overlooked narrative role of illustrations within Victorian serial fiction. They reveal the intricacy and richness of the form and push us to reconsider our notions of illustration, visual culture, narration, and reading practices in nineteenth-century Britain.

350 pages, Hardcover

Published December 17, 2018

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without question this text offers the best and most thorough explanation of the use of illustration in Victorian serial publications. Clear and yet detailed, academic and yet very accessible to the average reader, this book takes the reader through the evolution of the use of illustration used to enhance, explain, and develop the letterpress.

The Plot Thickens has many examples of the illustrations found in the Victorian serials which further enhance and explain the discussion. There is a very extensive Bibliography and the notes that accompany each chapter further develop and explain Leighton and Surridge’s arguments.

A must read for anyone interested in Victorian serial fiction from Dickens to Du Maurier.

[Bionic Jean]

recommended by Peter

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leighton and Surridge's study provides a fascinating and in-depth look at the role of illustration in shaping Victorian reading practices, "thickening" the plot by looking forward and backward at events, across a variety of novel genres. In its focus on illustrated serials, this book introduced to me to many non-canonical works from historical fiction to sensation novels that I need to add to my TBR, and a sprinkling of fun facts about Victorian fan culture and practices of engaging with print culture (my favorite being that children used to use the Illustrated London News--an often grisly documentation of crime and scandal--as coloring books).

I found myself skimming their detailed and thorough close readings of individual illustrations and their functions within each narrative very briefly, partly to avoid spoilers of material I'd like to read myself someday. But I imagine these would be invaluable to scholars of Victorian print and visual culture.