THE FIRST SERIAL

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 243, 28 June 1928, Page 3

THE FIRST SERIAL

“ROBINSON CRUSOE” RARITY. It is fitting that Defoe, the great journalist, should have been the auth- , or (perhaps without even his own consent) of what was probably the first “serial” in the strict sense ever published in a London newspaper (says the Observer). The announcement that among the latest hatch of a thousand books from the Holford Library in Dorchester House, put up for sale at Sotheby’s, will be one of the three copies in existence of “Robinson Crusoe,” in serial form, calls attention again to an ancient piece of journalistic enterprise. It happened that a few months after the publication of “Robinson Crusoe” its far-spread popularity led the editor of “The Original London Post” to re-produce it in his newspaper as a serial. Instalments appeared ’in every number of the London Post from October 7, 1719, till October 17, 1720, by which time the end of the second part had been reached. (It would appear that the Holford Volume contains only the first part, ending on March 30, 1720.)

Of the other two copies, one is in the Grenville Library at the British Museum, and this (writes a correspondent) I was able to examine the other day. The volume consists of the first sheets only of the newspaper, ■which was apparently a double sheet as a rule, though very often (as during the “silly season)” it was only a single sheet. The editor always leads —as we should say—with “Crusoe.” “Crusoe” was certainly the main feature. On single sheet days it often filled the whole paper. It was printed in type rather smaller than that used in The Observer, so the readers were given a fair portion each day. The paper (which was also called the Heatheot’s Intellingcer) was published thrice weekly, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, It described itself as a “collection of the freshest

advices, foreign and domestic,” and had always two little woodcuts, one representing an eighteenth-century newsboy, complete with peruke and sword, and the other of a long-robed foreign-looking gentleman with a sombrere, who ran to the legend “News from Spain”; not that Mr Heatheot seems to have specialised in Spanish intelligence, seeming to have had instead a penchant for Poland. On the first day he devoted nearly the whole of his front page to an announcement in large italic type of the wonders to come “The wonders of this man’s life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found Extant The Editor believes the thing to be just History of Fact: neither is there any appearance of

Faction (sic) about it ” (Then he praises its religious sentiments and prose style) “and however thinks because all such things are dispatched, that the Importance of it as well to the Diversion as to the Instruction of the Reader will be the same; and as such, he thinks, without further Compliment, he does a great Service in the publication.” Thereafter, editorial comments cease till the end of the first part, when he announces that the second part, which is to begin in the next number, will be equally exciting and also that “both volumes (this being mentioned the first time) “are sold by Mr Taylor, the bookseller.” It seems not improbable that this advertisement was all Defoe made out of it! Thus “Crusoe” ran for a year, averaging a page and a half a day. Once or twice there is a “tight” paper and he gets only half a page, notably when the reports are published of the Sessions at the “Old Baily” —a mere list of the charges followed by a note of the result, as thus: “Death,” or else “Ti-ansp.,” or “Burnt on the Hand”—always one of these three. During June aand July of 1720 there is a rush of foreign news, and “Crusoe” gets smaller and smaller space; then the “silly season” begins and he swells to his former dimen- . sions.