[RansomOttawa]

A lot of the 19th century Writers “overwrote” because their books were often serialized in weekly publications.

Yep, and as you noted, they were often paid by the word, which is pretty strong motivation for more effusive prose.

A critical edition of Dickens' books will probably tell you where the breaks were between installments, but an observant reader can probably spot them. Oliver Twist, for example, has some pretty obvious cliffhangers.

[Rockpile]

For me the 19th century fiction writers are mostly boring windbags.

I have found the books by soldiers,explorers,seamen,adventurers and so forth to be much more straightforward and interesting.

I do like Morris and Rider Haggard and Verne though.

Verne has suffered from suckass translators who shortened and abused his originals works.

[left that other site]

LOL...I recently watched a very long movie on Netflix.

It had apparently been a British TV Serial, and I knew where all the commercial breaks had been just from the ebb and flow of the action.