OSHER 865 - Dickens in Serial

Dickens pioneered the method of publishing novels in serial. By writing and publishing a novel in 19 monthly or 36 weekly installments, Dickens could change his story, shared and shaped by the audience who read it, at any time, depending on what his readers liked or disliked. And he did. By reading "Nicholas Nickleby" (1838), called "the funniest novel in the English language," published part-by-part in monthly installments, readers can weave Dickens's fictional world into their own real world. As the characters' stories change over 19 months, so, too, does the reader's own life. Readers see the changes in their own lives through the lens of the fictional characters.