| Research Abstract |
The systematic practice of serializing new fiction, not in independent installments or in literary magazines but in the columns of newspapers, began in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century. As Lise Queffelec has argued, the French roman-feuilleton represents the first use of a fully capitalist mode of production in the European fiction industry, and should thus indeed be seen as the forerunner of the modern mass narrative media. The aim of this project is to demonstrate that this is true of many other modernizing societies in the nineteenth century, by no means limited to Western Europe. Thus we have embarked on a detailed international study of the socio-cultural implications of this growth in the serialization of fiction in newspapers during the period from the accession of Queen Victoria to the outbreak of the First World War. The phenomenon is seen in the context of the massive changes in patterns of publication, authorship, and readership taking place during the nineteenth century, including the commodification of fiction through the emergence of popular narrative genres, the professionalization of the role of the writer, and the widening gulf between elite and mass reading publics. The framework of ideas underlying this project derives a good deal from an engagement with the work of Edward Said, Benedict Anderson and Franco Moretti concerning the impact of publishing history on cultural identity.
To further our purposes, we have carried out research in libraries and archives on four continents. At the same time, we have consulted regularly with a number of distinguished scholars in the field. We have already reported piecemeal many of the conclusions of our research in presentations at international conferences and in learned journals, etc. however, the fullest report of the results of the project will appear in a full-length monograph to be published by the University of Toronto Press, with whom a contract has already been negotiated.
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