The wonders of technology allow us to read Dickens's novel in its original month-by-month installments as they were published initially between May 1864 and November 1865. If you don't have the full hard-copy text in hand yet, reading some or all of the twenty monthly parts (the last "part" was a double issue of parts 19-20) will give you as close to a genuinely Victorian reading experience as we can produce.

Each monthly part was published separately in chunks with 32 pages of text, bound in heavy green paper covers (front and back). As you'll see, too, each issue contained lots of advertising before and after the 32 pages of text. It's a fascinating glimpse into what it was like to read Dickens in the 1860s. Dickens made money from the sale of each monthly part, as well as from the paid advertisements. Then after parts 19-20 appeared in the familiar green covers, the novel would be bound as a whole and sold for an appropriately steeper price, usually in three volumes (commonly called the [massive] Victorian "triple-decker").

Whether or not you read the digitized original monthly parts, I hope you will dip into at least a few installments as we proceed to keep somewhat grounded in the "Victorianness." Maybe one day readers will study novels by reviewing social media posts detailing the works' conception, development, and reception. Hey, it could happen!

Follow this link to view digital versions of the original twenty parts of the novel's serial publication: https://www.qub.ac.uk/our-mutual-friend/witnesses/monthly-parts/monthly-parts.htm.