Dickens begins serializing Great Expectations in All the Year Round

Background. All the Year Round was a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published throughout the United Kingdom between 1859 and 1895. Dickens established the journal in 1859 to ensure complete editorial control after previous publishers refused to print his personal statements. The magazine's debut in April 1859 featured A Tale of Two Cities, setting a precedent for Dickens's serialized fiction.

Publication. Great Expectations was first published as a serial in All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. The serialization consisted of thirty-six episodes over just over one year. Although Charles Lever's novel A Day's Ride continued in the magazine until March 1861, it became secondary to Great Expectations, which was conceived partly as an anti-silver fork novel attacking Lever's work.

Reception. The novel was widely praised, though not all reviews were favorable. Margaret Oliphant's review in Blackwood's Magazine in May 1862 vilified the work. Robert L. Patten identified four American editions in 1861, viewing the proliferation of publications across Europe and the Atlantic as extraordinary testimony to the novel's popularity. Dickens secured a contract with Tauchnitz in January 1861 for European publication.