George Eliot's Serial Fiction by Carol A. Martin (review)

Book Reviews91 opportunity to trace the ironies implicit in the inscription of ideal listeners, readers, or posterity within the prologue. In setting up her discussion, Losse hesitates between an enumeration of prefatory functions in individual works—thereby precluding demonstrative argument—and a hastily drawn socio-historical account of changes in reading habits and tastes accompanying the transition to print culture. In the latter case, Losse's allusions to "expanding readership" (65), and to the "breakdown in communication which results in the process of disseminating the printed word" (77), are offered as unsubstantiated presuppositions, which if fully developed would have provided crucial support for Losse's account of the dynamics between preface writer and audience. Losse regrets that not all Renaissance prologues are as savory as those of Rabelais, Des Périers, and de Cholières, and that the drier expository details will come to dominate in the seventeenth-century preface. Yet while she acknowledges and admires the interconnectedness of story and prologue , Losse confines her study of these richer texts to the critical construct of the preface as marginal to the "main text," a judgment which keeps her on the threshold of a valuable study. SUSAN KOVACS University ofKansas CAROL A MARTIN. George Eliot's Serial Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1994. 348 p. Although interest in the serialization ofVictorian fiction began in a serious scholarly way as far back as the late 1950s and early 1960s with the work of scholars such as Richard D. Altick and Robert Patten, recent years have seen a renewed interest in this form of publication so characteristic of the Victorian years. Given the growth of cultural studies, this interest is likely to expand and increase in complexity, especially since so much groundwork about the world of nineteenth-century periodicals is being done regularly and reviewed and assessed in the pages ofjournals such as RSVP. Thus the appearance of a book dedicated to Eliot's ventures into serial publication is welcome and likely to be received warmly by others working in the field of serial publication as well as by general readers interested in the details of such publication. Carol Martin's research is thorough and clearly presented. Although the book concentrates on Eliot's fiction, it draws comparisons with other serial fiction and generally introduces the nature of part publication of various kinds. Martin's structure is simple. She reviews the correspondence of George Lewes and Eliot with Eliot's editors and publishers, then provides details of how the different works appeared in their serial forms, and follows with a generous sampling of the reviews. This is a sensible approach, but it becomes repetitive after a while for anyone who is not intent on all of 92Rocky Mountain Review the specifics of Eliot's serial ventures. Martin records a good deal of Eliot's worrying over the plans for each serial publication but elaborates too much on precisely how the individual numbers developed and quotes more than is necessary from the reviews. Of course an impatient reader may simply skim through this material and pause at the genuinely instructive passages. Martin shatters conclusively the myth that Eliot ignored reviews of her work. Whether Eliot read them directly or not, she was sensitive to their importance and she was occasionally affected by what they had to say—not to the degree that she would compromise her artistic aims, but certainly to the degree that she respected the expectations of her audience. Also, it is clear that her art was in the service of income. She paid attention to little details, such as the length of serial installments, and was alert to the advantages that might derive from public events, as when the Tichborne Trial offered the possibility of increased sales by generating an interest in inheritance just when Middlemarch was treating the very same subject. Martin occasionally draws conclusions about the role of serialization in Eliot's career. For example, she remarks that Adam Bede, published only as a completed novel, was a stunning success, whereas Scenes of Clerical Life, published serially in Blackwood's Magazine, had a positive but mild reception . Martin concludes that Eliot made the right career decision not to...