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JuristaDoAlgarve OP t1_iy0t9ww wrote

Reply to comment by urbanek2525 in What are the greatest novels written after the popularisation of TV? All the stuff I love - 1984, Dubliners, Karamazov - seem to have been written before by JuristaDoAlgarve

WOW I had no idea that a book was that expensive in the 19th century! That’s nuts. Could you share any more information on the price of books historically ? What about the “zine” type magazines that were popular at the time? I was under the impression that Dickens and Dostoyevsky both published in these magazines that would publish chapters at a time? Is that corrrect ?

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urbanek2525 t1_iy13jit wrote

That's what I read too. Crime and Punishment was published in installments in 1866. That first edition in found on-line was published in 1867.

My understanding was that Dickens made more money reading short stories at in-person events than from the publishing novels. I'll bet those events were pretty much only aristocracy.

It's nothing new, though. I read Larry Niven's "The Ringworld Engineers" as it was serialized in Galileo Magazine. I grew up in a small town and I'd go to City Market (grocery store) every week looking for the next edition. This would have been late 1970s.

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JuristaDoAlgarve OP t1_iy17bcx wrote

I suppose my question is - would reading books like that - buying it in instalments in magazines as it comes out - be cheaper than the figure you’ve mentioned for the whole book? Ie less than 200$

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urbanek2525 t1_iy1nlz0 wrote

Good thought. IDK. I wonder how much the periodical was? You'd get a lot more than one story,

I know that all of Alexandre Dumas's books were published in periodicals. "The Count of Monte Christo" was published in 18 instalments, from August 1844 to January 1846.

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