Hardy's World

The great social changes that happened in Britain during Victoria's reign as a result of the latter part of the Industrial Revolution led to changes in most literature. For much of its history reading literature had been the preserve of the aristocratic or the learned; those who had the time and money to engage in the hobby or even to learn the basic skills necessary. Many factors including the growth of universal education, the affluence of Victorian society and the gas light served to make reading both more accessible and desirable. Although it would still take a long time, British society was slowly becoming literate.

This new readership dictated a change in the methods of authors. For much of their history authors had worked for literary patrons, rich individuals who would fund an author's working life and effectively 'reward' a writer with money, gifts or positions for their latest book. This patronage by a few wealthy people tended to limit the range and style of works produced. The rise in a broader reading audience meant that the author could sell their work on the open market to the public at large. This meant not only an explosion of readers but also of writers catering to the varied tastes of the time. Although a greater range and proliferation of work abounded the author was often no freer from the whims and moods of his readers in the general public than when controlled by a wealthy patron.

The prevailing method of publication to reach a wider audience was serialization in regular literary journals. This gave the reader a series of short episodes, usually in weekly or monthly installments, each with their own cliff-hanger which heightened expectations and made the purchase of the next installment a must. While the average substantial work had about twenty parts, there could be as many as thirty-five: usually with illustrations of key scenes by artists like Phiz (pseudonym of Hablot Knight Browne). Punch and Household Words were two such journals. Once the entire story was serialized, the parts were combined into a complete work; the work would then (usually) be published as a three-volume novel rather than a single book. Despite the constraints of this form, many great novels were published in this manner (e.g., all of Dickens' major works were published serially.)

The three-volume structure was promoted by Charles Mudie's library "Leviathan". This was an early subscription library, and one of the most popular. For a small fee, much less than it would cost to purchase a book outright, a reader could borrow the latest novel or non-fiction work. This added to the popularity of novels and reading, and by the 1850s Mudie had almost 950,000 volumes. Owing to his importance in this new industry, Mudie was in a position to dictate the plot of many works; this is apparent in the 1890s when Mudie's business floundered and the number of works published in three volumes dropped to almost none. In addition to the prevalence of the three-volume format, Mudie is sometimes blamed for the frequency of happy endings in Victorian fiction.