Serial Forms
The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848
Clare Pettitt
Reviews and Awards
Co-winner, 2022 ESPRit Prize, European Society for Periodical Studies
Winner, 2022 NAVSA Annual Book Prize, North American Victorian Studies Association
"Serial Forms establishes the importance of seriality as organizing logic and uses it to open up the period in illuminating ways. The arguments about temporality, however, particularly how a sense of shared present was developed, are not just persuasive but transformative." - Prof. James Mussell, Journal of European Periodical Studies
"The book is the first of a projected trilogy that will follow its argument through the First World War: Pettitt's readers will shortly be able to assess a bit more of her compelling argument's historical and theoretical reach." - David Kurnick, criticalinquiry.com
"It is a valuable and original investigation of noncanonical serials in the early nineteenth century. It is also a significant contribution to the conversation about form, time, and politics that extends beyond seriality studies." - Robyn Warhol's, MLQ: A Journal of Literary History
"This is both an exciting and a weighty book. It joins extensive archival knowledge with sharp theoretical insight to throw a new light on the emergence of the modern subject ... I am eager for the next installment." - Caroline Levine, Modern Philology
"Pettitt expertly weaves together various strands to show how the growing infiltration of seriality into every aspect of culture forms 'the dynamic processes involved in calibrating a new form of social time'. [...] Serial Forms is a rich, textured study, and there are many byways of the argument not touched upon here that readers will find useful."" - David E. Latané, Victorian Periodicals Review
"In Pettitt's hands, serialization becomes not simply a subject for literary discussion, but is interpreted as a significant cultural movement which informed, and was informed by, the politics and people of the time. The result is an insightful and inspiring collection of chapters that broadens our knowledge of the subject and - appropriately in the spirit of serialization - whets our appetite for the next two books to follow." - Pete Orford, University of Buckingham , Dickens Quarterly
"With its thrilling combination of small details and big insights, this book should attract a readership as wide and grateful as that achieved by Linda Hughes and Michael Lund's The Victorian Serial... I, for one, am eager for the next installment." - Matthew Poland, University of Washington, Seattle, review19