Advertisement for Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, serialised weekly in the literary magazine All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861 In literature, a serial is a printing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments. The instalments are also known as numbers, parts or fascicles, and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper. Early history The growth of moveable type in the 17th century prompted episodic and often disconnected narratives such as L'Astrée and Le Grand Cyrus. At that time, books remained a premium item, so to reduce the price and expand the market, publishers produced large works in lower-cost instalments called fascicles. These had the added attraction of allowing a publisher to gauge the popularity of a work without incurring the expense of a substantial print run of bound volumes: if the work was not a success, no bound volumes needed to be prepared. If, on the other hand, the serialised book sold well, it was a good bet that bound volumes would sell well, too. The first several books in the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin appeared from 1978 as regular installments in San Francisco newspapers. Similar serial novels ran in other city newspapers, such as The Serial (1976; Marin County), Tangled Lives (Boston), Bagtime (Chicago), and Federal Triangle (Washington, D.C.). Starting in 1984, Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, about contemporary New York City, ran in 27 parts in Rolling Stone, partially inspired by the model of Dickens. The magazine paid $200,000 for his work, but Wolfe heavily revised the work before publication as a standalone novel. Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, experimented in 2004 with publishing his novel 44 Scotland Street in instalments every weekday in The Scotsman. Michael Chabon serialized Gentlemen of the Road in The New York Times Magazine in 2007.
Advertisement for Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, serialised weekly in the literary magazine All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861 In literature, a serial is a printing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential installments. The installments are also known as numbers, parts or fascicles, and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper. Early history The growth of moveable type in the 17th century prompted episodic and often disconnected narratives such as L'Astrée and Le Grand Cyrus. At that time, books remained a premium item, so to reduce the price and expand the market, publishers produced large works in lower-cost installments called fascicles. These had the added attraction of allowing a publisher to gauge the popularity of a work without incurring the expense of a substantial print run of bound volumes: if the work was not a success, no bound volumes needed to be prepared. If, on the other hand, the serialised book sold well, it was a good bet that bound volumes would sell well, too. The first several books in the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin appeared from 1978 as regular installments in San Francisco newspapers. Similar serial novels ran in other city newspapers, such as The Serial (1976; Marin County), Tangled Lives (Boston), Bagtime (Chicago), and Federal Triangle (Washington, D.C.). Starting in 1984, Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, about contemporary New York City, ran in 27 parts in Rolling Stone, partially inspired by the model of Dickens. The magazine paid $200,000 for his work, but Wolfe heavily revised the work before publication as a standalone novel. Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, experimented in 2004 with publishing his novel 44 Scotland Street in installments every weekday in The Scotsman. Michael Chabon serialized Gentlemen of the Road in The New York Times Magazine in 2007.
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