husband—I forget which it is to be—in the last."). Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1875), Chapter LXXXIX ("The length of her novel had been her first question. It must be in three volumes, and each volume must have three hundred pages."). Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889), Chapter XII ("The London Journal duke always has his "little place" at Maidenhead; and the heroine of the three-volume novel always dines there when she goes out on the spree with somebody else's husband."). Kipling, "The Three-Decker" (1894), Text , Commentary Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1890), ("Anybody can write a three-volume novel, it merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature"). Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act II ("I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us." "Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily.") and Act III ("It contained the manuscript of a three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality."). See also Victorian literature Word count Novel sequence Notes Sources A New Introduction to Bibliography, Philip Gaskell. Oxford, 1979. Mudie's Select Library and the Form of Victorian Fiction, George P. Landow. The Victorian Web. References Three-volume novel Books by type