Armadale by Wilkie Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

serial divisions of the novel in
Cornhill
are as follows: 1 (November 1864) Book the First, Chapter One; 2 (December 1864) Book the Second, Chapter One; 3 (January 1865) Book the Second, Chapter Two; 4 (February 1865) Book the Second, Chapter Four; 5 (March 1865) Book the Third, Chapter One; 6 (April 1865) Book the Third, Chapter Three; 7 (May 1865) Book the Third, Chapter Five; 8 (June 1865) Book the Third, Chapter Eight; 9 (July 1865) Book the Third, Chapter Ten; 10 (August 1865) Book the Third, Chapter Thirteen; 11 (September 1865) Book the Fourth, Chapter Three; 12 (October 1865) Book the Fourth, Chapter Five (up to this point in the run,
Armadale
was the first item in the magazine; after this point it was relegated to an inferior position); 13 (November 1865) Book the Fourth, Chapter Eight; 14 (December 1865) Book the Fourth, Chapter Ten; 15 (January 1866) Book the Fourth, Chapter Eleven; 16 (February 1866) Book the Fourth, Chapter Fourteen; 17 (March 1866) Book the Fourth, Chapter Fifteen; 18 (April 1866) Book the Fifth, Chapter One; 19 (May 1866) Book the Fifth, Chapter Three continued; 20 (June 1866) Book the Last, Chapter Three.
    Collins had originally wanted
Armadale
to be illustrated by his close friend John Millais. But the artist was too busy (or perhaps too expensive), and Smith recruited the inferior George Thomas, who supplied one full-page and one vignette woodcut (to accompany the first paragraph) for each of the twenty numbers. It seems that Thomas had early proofs to work from, although some mismatches occurred between text and illustration (see Book the Second, Chapter I, note 7).
    The
Cornhill
had been on a circulation slide ever since its launch (when it sold just under 110,000 copies). As
Armadale
started its run, monthly sales stood at around 41,000. Collins added a couple of thousand new subscribers, but by the end of
Armadale’s
serialization the magazine’s sales had sunk to a new low of 36,000–38,000. 9
    Armadale
was serialized a month later in America in
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
, from December 1864 to July 1866. It is likely that the American publisher was sent early proof sheets and Thomas’s woodblocks, to forestall piracy. (Since not all
Harper’s
instalments are illustrated, the timetable may occasionally have proved too tight.) Thenovel proved popular in America, and apparently revived the magazine’s circulation, which had been badly hit by the Civil War. According to Nuel Davis,
Harper’s
paid Collins between £500 and £750 for the serial and volume rights.
    Smith, Elder released a ‘Library Edition’ of
Armadale
in two volumes in the second half of May 1866 (the break came between the ninth and tenth numbers). Essentially, it comprised the text and Thomas’s twenty illustrations as they had appeared in
Comhill Magazine
, with the addition of a title page designed by Collins. It contained a moralistic epigraph: ‘“Even my wickedness has one merit – it has not prospered. I have never been a happy woman.” Miss Gwilt.’ The two-volume edition also had a dedication to John Forster, an apologetic foreword by Collins and the ‘Appendix’ on the mysteriously prophetic events on the ship
Armadale
. There was some superficial reordering of materials: ‘Book the First’ became ‘Prologue’, with the following ‘books’ appropriately renumbered. Otherwise, the text was substantially as serialized, with a few errors and rough edges tidied up. The two-volume
Armadale
cost 26 shillings. Early reviews of the novel were extraordinarily and almost universally savage, and the edition did not, apparently, sell well (although evidently the librarian Mudie was obliged to order more than he initially intended). 10 The bibliophile Michael Sadleir notes that very few copies of the two-volume edition survive. 11 The surviving records of Smith, Elder record a print run of 1,286, of which 1,118 sold. Mudie