1859–1870 In 1859,
Charles Dickens was the editor of his magazine
Household Words, published by
Bradbury and Evans; their refusal to publish Dickens' defensive "personal statement" on his divorce in their other publication,
Punch, led Dickens to create a new weekly magazine that he would own and control entirely. In 1859, Dickens founded
All the Year Round, taking
William Henry Wills with him from
Household Words as part-owner and sub-editor. As with his previous magazine, the author searched for a title that could be derived from a Shakespearean quotation. He found it on 28 January 1859 (in
Othello, act one, scene three, lines 128–129), to be displayed before the title: The new weekly magazine had its debut issue on Saturday 30 April 1859, featuring the first instalment of Dickens's
A Tale of Two Cities. The launch was an immediate success. One month after the launch, Dickens won a lawsuit in the
Court of Chancery against his former publisher Bradbury and Evans, giving him back the trade name of his previous journal.
AYRs full title then acquired a fourth item: "
All the Year Round. A Weekly Journal. Conducted by Charles Dickens. With Which Is Incorporated Household Words."
All the Year Round contained the same mixture of fiction and non-fiction as
Household Words but with a greater emphasis on literary matters and less on journalism. Nearly 11 per cent of the non-fiction articles in
All the Year Round dealt with some aspect of international affairs or cultures, discounting the
American Civil War, which Dickens instructed his staff to avoid unless they had specifically cleared a topic with him first. Old tales of crime (especially with a French or Italian setting), new developments in science (including the theories of
Charles Darwin), lives and struggles of inventors, tales of exploration and adventure in distant parts, and examples of self-help among humble folk, are among the topics which found a ready welcome from Dickens. After 1863, although Dickens continued to micromanage the editorial department, scrupulously revising copy, his own contributions fell off considerably, largely because he spent more and more time on the road with his public readings. A few weeks before 28 November 1868, Dickens announced a new series for
All the Year Round: "I beg to announce to the readers of this Journal, that on the completion of the Twentieth Volume on the Twenty-eighth of November, in the present year, I shall commence an entirely New Series of
All the Year Round. The change is not only due to the convenience of the public (with which a set of such books, extending beyond twenty large volumes, would be quite incompatible), but is also resolved upon for the purpose of effecting some desirable improvements in respect of type, paper, and size of page, which could not otherwise be made."
1870–1895 After hiring him as the subeditor of the magazine a year earlier, Dickens bequeathed
All the Year Round to his eldest son
Charles Dickens, Jr. ("Charles Dickens the younger" in the testament) one week before his death in June 1870. After Dickens's death, his son would own and edit the magazine from 25 June 1870 until the end of 1895 (or possibly just until 1888). In 1889, the magazine started a "Third series". It is unclear how much Dickens Jr. was involved with the new series, ==Series==