“Out with it,” as the subeditor said to the novel: Wellerisms and the humor of newspaper excerpts
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2017
Department
Pavlis Honors College
Abstract
A “Wellerism” is a type of joke that developed out of the practices of actual and mock quotation from Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers and contemporaneous newspapers. Subeditors practicing “scissors-and-paste” journalism were enamored with the character of Sam Weller, whose characteristic practice of mock quotation itself mimics the process of newspaper excerption. By tracing the development of the Wellerism as an outgrowth of newspaper excerption during the serialization of Pickwick, we can better understand the practice of scissorsandpaste journalism, particularly the contexts readers brought to deracinated quotations. To fully appreciate the humor of a Wellerism, readers must employ intertextual knowledge, which creates a special sense of belonging.
Publication Title
Victorian Periodicals Review
Recommended Citation
Fiss, L.
(2017).
“Out with it,” as the subeditor said to the novel: Wellerisms and the humor of newspaper excerpts.
Victorian Periodicals Review,
50(1), 228-237.
http://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2017.0011
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p/1006
Publisher's Statement
Copyright © 2017 The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2017.0011