"The Original 1861 Title-page of the Harper's Edition" — Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White. A Novel" — from <span class="book">Harper's Weekly</span> (1859-60)

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The Original 1861 Title-page of the Harper's Edition

1861

23.5 cm high by 14.5 cm wide (9 ¼ by 5 ¾ inches).

Contains all uncaptioned headnote vignettes for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (31 December 1859 through 8 September 1860).

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.

The novel's serial run in Dickens's weekly journal All the Year Round began on precisely the same date as the New York run, a fact which suggests that Dickens had sent Harper's advance proofs. And unlike Harper's Weekly, in his replacement for Household Words (1850-59) editor-owner Charles Dickens offered the British reading public no illustrations. Moreover, whereas the British serial concluded with weekly instalment no. 40 on 25 August 1860, the Harper's serialisation did not wind up until 8 September 1860. The novel first appeared in volume form on 15 August 1860, ten days ahead of the last instalment in All the Year Round, but three weeks ahead of the last instalment in the New York magazine. The 1861 British edition, somewhat revised from the AtYR text, was illustrated by British artist Sir John Gilbert with seven plates, much in the style of McLenan and engraved by the Dalziels. The editors of the Broadview edition, Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox, note that Dickens gambled that Collins's novel would sustain the circulation which A Tale of Two Cities had created for Dickens's new weekly journal: sales soared to 100,000 copies per week.

Bibliography

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (16 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert. London: Minerva, 2006.

Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva, 1992. Pp. 205-225.

Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.

Created 6 July 2024