Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
serial
Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics
Quizzes
Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, with her dog, Toto, from the motion picture film The Wizard of Oz (1939); directed by Mervyn LeRay. (cinema, movies)
Classic Closing Lines
Quick Facts
Related Topics:
film
narrative
genre
See all related content
Britannica AI Icon
Adding us as a Preferred Source tells Google you trust our content, so our articles show up more often in your Google Search, Discover feed, and AI Overviews.
verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

serial

narrative format
Also known as: chapter play, cliff-hanger
Written and fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

serial, a novel or other work appearing (as in a magazine) in parts at intervals. Novels written in the 19th century were commonly published as serials. Many works by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, and others first appeared serially in such magazines as Dickens’s Household Words and Thackeray’s The Cornhill Magazine.