 Cover of third series, January 1891 issue | |
| Author | Editor:Charles Dickens |
|---|---|
| Original title | All The Year Round, A Weekly Journal conducted by Charles Dickens |
| Language | English |
| Series | Weekly: 1859–1895 |
| Genre | Magazine, Social criticism |
| Publisher | Chapman & Hall |
Publication date | 1859 |
| Publication place | England |
| Media type | Print (Serial) |
| Preceded by | Household Words |
| Followed by | Household Words, new series |
All the Year Round was a British weeklyliterary magazine founded and owned byCharles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publicationHousehold Words, abandoned due to differences with his former publisher.
It hosted the serialisation of many prominent novels, including Dickens's ownA Tale of Two Cities. After Dickens's death in 1870, it was owned and edited by his eldest sonCharles Dickens Jr., and a quarter-share was owned by the editor and journalistWilliam Henry Wills.[1][2]
In 1859,Charles Dickens was the editor of his magazineHousehold Words, published byBradbury and Evans; their refusal to publish Dickens' defensive "personal statement" on his divorce in their other publication,Punch,[3] led Dickens to create a new weekly magazine that he would own and control entirely.[4]
In 1859, Dickens foundedAll the Year Round, takingWilliam Henry Wills with him fromHousehold Words as part-owner and sub-editor. As with his previous magazine, the author searched for a title that could be derived from a Shakespearean quotation. He found it on 28 January 1859 (inOthello, act one, scene three, lines 128–129), to be displayed before the title:[5]
|
The new weekly magazine had its debut issue on Saturday 30 April 1859, featuring the first instalment of Dickens'sA Tale of Two Cities.[6][7] The launch was an immediate success.
So well hasAll the Year Round gone that it was yesterday able to repay me, with five per cent. interest, all the money I advanced for its establishment (paper, print etc. all paid, down to the last number), and yet to leave a good £500 balance at the banker's![5]
— Charles Dickens
One month after the launch, Dickens won a lawsuit in theCourt of Chancery against his former publisher Bradbury and Evans, giving him back the trade name of his previous journal.[4] On Saturday 28 May 1859, five weeks after the launch ofAll the Year Round, Dickens terminatedHousehold Words, publishing its last issue with a prospectus for his new journal and the announcement that, "After the appearance of the present concluding Number ofHousehold Words, this publication will merge into the new weekly publication,All the Year Round, and the title,Household Words, will form a part of the title-page ofAll the Year Round."[8]AYR's full title then acquired a fourth item: "All the Year Round. A Weekly Journal. Conducted by Charles Dickens. With Which Is Incorporated Household Words."
All the Year Round contained the same mixture of fiction and non-fiction asHousehold Words but with a greater emphasis on literary matters and less on journalism. Nearly 11 per cent of the non-fiction articles inAll the Year Round dealt with some aspect of international affairs or cultures, discounting theAmerican Civil War, which Dickens instructed his staff to avoid unless they had specifically cleared a topic with him first. Old tales of crime (especially with a French or Italian setting), new developments in science (including the theories ofCharles Darwin), lives and struggles of inventors, tales of exploration and adventure in distant parts, and examples of self-help among humble folk, are among the topics which found a ready welcome from Dickens.
After 1863, although Dickens continued to micromanage the editorial department, scrupulously revising copy, his own contributions fell off considerably, largely because he spent more and more time on the road with his public readings.
A few weeks before 28 November 1868, Dickens announced a new series forAll the Year Round: "I beg to announce to the readers of this Journal, that on the completion of the Twentieth Volume on the Twenty-eighth of November, in the present year, I shall commence an entirely New Series ofAll the Year Round. The change is not only due to the convenience of the public (with which a set of such books, extending beyond twenty large volumes, would be quite incompatible), but is also resolved upon for the purpose of effecting some desirable improvements in respect of type, paper, and size of page, which could not otherwise be made."[9]
After hiring him as the subeditor of the magazine a year earlier,[10] Dickens bequeathedAll the Year Round to his eldest sonCharles Dickens, Jr. ("Charles Dickens the younger" in the testament) one week before his death in June 1870.[11]After Dickens's death, his son would own and edit the magazine from 25 June 1870 until the end of 1895 (or possibly just until 1888).[12][13]
In 1889, the magazine started a "Third series". It is unclear how much Dickens Jr. was involved with the new series,[13] but a number of stories were contributed byMary Dickens.
In 1895,All the Year Round ended. It had its last issue on 30 March 1895, after three series.[6][7][14]
Each volume was 26 numbers long, half a year (thus Vol. 1 was Nos 1 to 26, Vol. 2 was Nos 27 to 52, Vol. 3 was Nos 53 to 78, but the annuals and seasonal extras counted for additional numbers.)
Dickens collaborated with other staff writers on a number of Christmas stories and plays for seasonal issues of the magazine, including:
A number of prominent authors and novels were serialised inAll the Year Round, including:
Other contributors included:
Staff writers included:
Most articles were printed without naming their author; only the editor, "Conducted by Charles Dickens", was mentioned on the first page and the head of every other page. While a complete key to who wrote what and for how much inHousehold Words was compiled in 1973 by Anne Lohrli (using an analysis of the office account book maintained by Dickens's subeditor,W. H. Wills), unfortunately the account book forAll the Year Round has not survived. Ella Ann Oppenlander has attempted to provide something comparable in a 1984 book not easily procured, but only manages to identify less than a third of the contributors:Dickens' All the Year Round: Descriptive Index and Contributor List. In July 2015 antiquarian bookseller and Dickens scholar Jeremy Parrott announced at a conference in Belgium that he had discovered Dickens's own annotated set ofAll the Year Round, naming all the contributors. A full guide to the magazine is now in progress and should be published in 2018.
Noted anonymous articles include:
