A Tale of Two Cities: The Publishing Context

On April 30, 1859, Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" was first published in the literary periodical "All the Year Round" in weekly installments until Nov 26. A short excerpt from the article:

"weekly parts, from 30 April to 26 November 1859, as the lead piece in Dickens’s new journal, All the Year Round. The journal was a miscellany, costing 2 pence per week, which featured serialised novels, short fiction, poetry, travel writing and various non-fiction pieces, written by a multitude of authors. To keep the price of the journal low, Dickens avoided a tax on newspapers by ensuring All the Year Round did not feature any news, although it did report some international events, such as the Italian War of Unification (1859). A Tale of Two Cities featured prominently on the front page of All the Year Round and inaugurated a popular tactic, used by Dickens and many other magazine editors of the 1860s, of drawing in readers and securing their loyalty with new, serialised works of fiction by famous, bestselling authors. Naturally, a new work of fiction by Dickens held enormous appeal for readers and must have contributed greatly to the successful launch and early life of All the Year Round. While Dickens’s previous journal, Household Words (1850–59), had featured the serialisation of only one of his novels in nine years – Hard Times in 1854 – All the Year Round would feature two Dickens novels – A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (1860–61) – within its first two years. Like other successful Victorian journals, All the Year Round required a steady supply and turnover of new contributors who became ‘regulars’ for a time. The prioritisation of serialised fiction represented a marked change of emphasis for the new journal and there was also a discernible shift of character – the introduction of a lighter, jauntier tone – brought about by the recruitment of younger writers."