Victorian Literature

It was during the Victorian period (1837-1901) that the novel became the dominant literary form, and Hardy is considered one of the major novelists of the era, along with Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Rudyard Kipling, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and many others. It was common for novels to be published serially, in magazines or in standalone sections. The Mayor of Casterbridge was first published serially, in twenty installments, in an English periodical called The Graphic in 1886. It was published simultaneously in the United States in Harper's Weekly. Hardy's original manuscript, with some sections missing, is at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.

The Mayor of Casterbridge was published in book form as soon as the serial publication was complete. Many novels of this period differ slightly in their serial and book forms (authors were aware of the serial format as they wrote and structured...