Abstract
Serial publication revolutionized the Victorian publishing industry. For this reason, “writing by numbers” is an important concept for any student who is studying Victorian literature. This chapter will demonstrate the usefulness of working with Charles Dickens’s unfinished serialized novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, to introduce part-issue publication. By studying the existing chapters of the novel with an eye toward installment breaks, constructing “appropriate” endings to the novel, and memorializing those endings in Dickensian-style installment plans, students gain a deeper appreciation for the craft and nuance of Victorian serialization. The structure of the course, including a one hour, forty minutes class meeting once a week, further facilitates the deep, immersive learning that pedagogical research has found critical to student success.
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Chavez, J.M., Hauhart, R.C. (2017). Teaching Dickens by the Numbers: A Case Study of The Mystery of Edwin Drood . In: Cadwallader, J., Mazzeno, L. (eds) Teaching Victorian Literature in the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58886-5_3
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