Welcome to Stanford’s Victorian Reading Project
Our goal is to reanimate, for modern readers, the Victorian encounter with serialized novels, read as they were intended to be—one issue at a time. From 2002 to 2007, we have enjoyed a vicarious journey through the 19th century, courtesy of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Stanford University Library’s Special Collections. We began with three Dickens novels, Great Expectations in 2002-2003, A Tale of Two Cities in 2004, and Hard Times in 2005, and continued in 2006 and 2007 with selected Sherlock Holmes stories, including a complete novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Each work was presented in facsimile, along with notes and commentary to enhance the reading experience. Paper issues were mailed weekly to our subscribers; others were invited to read the same issues on our web site.
We offer our thanks to those who have traveled along with us, and, for those who haven’t, the complete text and notes of all the stories and novels will remain online, available for downloading and perusal at your leisure, free of charge. All are available to you through our archived novels.
For the next year or two we will be on hiatus, but don’t despair. We hope to return to Victorian times as soon as circumstances allow. Meanwhile, we encourage you to write and tell us what Discovering Dickens and Discovering Sherlock Holmes have meant to you, or offer suggestions for future programs. Thank you for visiting our little corner of 19th-century England, and enjoy your stay!
Many thanks to Stanford Continuing Studies, which supported and funded this project from the beginning, and to our generous partners: Stanford Alumni Association and Stanford University Libraries, and to many of our readers who have generously given to this project.