Victorian authors--paid by the word?
I've often seen it claimed that Victorian authors like Dickens wrote ornate, wordy prose because they were paid by the word, so they had a financial incentive to be needlessly prolix and pad their narratives. Can anyone point me to an authoritative, scholarly source (i.e., not a site giving advice to writers) for this?
It seems to be one of those things that "everyone knows," so no one bothers to cite a source for them--like "the phrase 'rule of thumb' refers to the thickness of the stick with which a man was allowed to beat his wife" or "'Crap' comes from Thomas Crapper, the inventor of the flush toilet"--and it has the same ring as these origin stories (both bogus, as far as I know).
Searches I've tried: "Victorian prose style," "Dickens's prose style," "Influences on Victorian prose style," "influences on Dickens's style," and "Dickens paid by the word." I also checked Peter Ackroyd's biography of Dickens, with no luck.
It seems to be one of those things that "everyone knows," so no one bothers to cite a source for them--like "the phrase 'rule of thumb' refers to the thickness of the stick with which a man was allowed to beat his wife" or "'Crap' comes from Thomas Crapper, the inventor of the flush toilet"--and it has the same ring as these origin stories (both bogus, as far as I know).
Searches I've tried: "Victorian prose style," "Dickens's prose style," "Influences on Victorian prose style," "influences on Dickens's style," and "Dickens paid by the word." I also checked Peter Ackroyd's biography of Dickens, with no luck.