Serial Fiction and the Novel

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the publication of American novels as serial fiction in magazines, newspapers, and story-papers from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. After providing a background on the history of serial novels, the chapter looks at examples of canonical novels that began as serials in periodicals, including Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, William Dean Howells's A Modern Instance, Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, and Sarah Orne Jewett's Country of Pointed Firs. It then examines how the serial novel was shaped by its serialization both in terms of its production and its reception. Finally, it considers the reasons for the decline of the serial novel.