The American Serialization of <i>Lord Jim</i>

Stephen Donovan

doi:10.21825/jeps.v2i2.4811

The American Serialization of <i>Lord Jim</i>

Stephen Donovan Uppsala University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21825/jeps.v2i2.4811

Keywords: Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, serialization, syndication, Evening Telegram (New York), women readers

Abstract

This essay presents the discovery of the American serialization of Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim in New York’s Evening Telegram in 1903. This ‘lost’ serialization, it argues, invites a new perspective on Conrad’s early career by foregrounding the role of newspaper serialization and syndication in establishing his literary standing. After surveying the principal differences in the respective reading experiences of the periodical versus the book, it concludes by proposing that the prominence of women among Conrad’s first audiences requires us to reassess the basis for his success in North America and elsewhere.

Author Biography

Stephen Donovan, Uppsala University

Stephen Donovan teaches English at Uppsala University, Sweden. His publications include Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture (2005); Speculative Fiction and Imperialism in Africa (2013); Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism (2012; co-edited with Matthew Rubery); special issues of the Conradian (2009), English Studies in Africa (2007, 2016), Screening the Past (2009, 2012), and Studia Neophilologica (2013); and numerous essays and journal articles on Conrad including contributions to The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature (2015), The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad (2014), and Joseph Conrad in Context (2009). He is also the creator of Conrad First: The Joseph Conrad Periodical Archive (www.conradfirst.net), an open-access archive of 80,000 facsimile pages comprising all of Conrad’s writings in serial as well as specially commissioned scholarly essays.

Published

2017-12-30

Issue

Vol 2 No 2 (2017)

Section

Articles

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