Despite the temptation to see illustration as an eternal practice as old as cave painting, the field is decidedly modern, elementally tied to printing, publishing in vernacular languages, and rising literacy rates from the fifteenth century. During the first third of the nineteenth century, approaches for combining text and images in pamphlets and books evolved haphazardly. The metal engravings plopped into the new literary annuals of the 1820s— diminutive gift books marketed to genteel women as Christmas presents—were added to increase their appeal. Self-conscious editors began to commission textual illustrations (meaning commentaries) to explain or enliven the pictures, typically portraits or landscapes. Caricaturists were engaged to create book projects and writers commissioned to “write up to” or respond to images, as was true of Thomas Rowlandson’s Tours of Dr. Syntax (1810-12) with text by Willam Combe. Finally the rise of the novel inspired publishers to contemplate the inclusion of pictorial embellishments, comprehensively undertaken by Thomas Cadell’s “Opus Edition” of Walter Scott’s Waverly novels, 1829-1833.

In such a fluid environment did new publishers Chapman and Hall undertake to publish what would become The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (issued 1836-37), simultaneously commissioning established caricaturist Robert Seymour and the young writer Charles Dickens, a pairing which would end in tragedy for one, and dramatic success for the other—in the process shaping the power dynamics of serialized fiction illustration which would prevail for the next 150 years. This paper will address the use of historical printed matter in an archival setting to investigate the serial format of fascicles, or monthly pamphlets, to enable graduate students to study: an illustrated reading experience as defined in the 1830s; an editorial process from a primary source; the rise of advertising in serial formats; the appearance of Sam Weller as a character in Volume 4 which saved a sagging project; the role played by H.K. Browne, or “Phiz,” who would become a primary illustrator to Dickens across many projects; the growth of Dickensiana; the symbiotic relationship between the magazine and book publishing businesses; and the historical phenomenon of the popular “hit series,” pioneered through fascicle publishing.