It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a popular novelist revealed to the world in a well-known periodical the existence of the ‘Unknown Public;’ and a very curious revelation it was. He showed us that the few thousands of persons who had hitherto imagined themselves to be the public so far, at least, as their being the arbiters of popularity in respect to writers of fiction was concerned were in fact nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to the circulating libraries, the members of book clubs, the purchasers of magazines and railway novels, might indeed have their favourites, but that these last were ‘nowhere,’ as respected the number of their backers, in comparison with novelists whose names and works appear in penny journals and nowhere else.

This class of literature was of considerable dimensions even in the days when Mr. Wilkie Collins first called attention to it; but the luxuriance of its growth has since become tropical. His observations are drawn from some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas I now hold in my hand or rather in both hands nearly half a hundred of them. The population of readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense that can support such a crop.

Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these serials is equal to that of the most successful of them at the date of their first discovery; but those who read them must, from various causes, of which the most obvious is the least important, have trebled in number. Population, that is to say, has increased in very small proportion as compared with the increase of those who very literally run and read the peripatetic students, who study on their way to work or even as they work, including, I am sorry to say, the telegraph boy on his errand.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, the Unknown Public remains practically as unknown as ever. The literary wares that find such favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary observer. They are to be found neither at the bookseller’s nor on the railway stall. But in back streets, in small dark shops, in the company of cheap tobacco, hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their leaves lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in the week is their springtime, when they are put forth from Heaven knows what printing-houses in courts and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the counter in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their nominal publishing day, they have for the most part disappeared. For this sort of literature has one decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one virtue of endurance it comes out ever so long before the date it bears upon its title-page, and ‘when the world shall have passed away’ will, by a few days at least, if faith is to be placed in figures, survive it.

Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. There is nothing in the contents that is peculiar to one year or, to say truth, of one era rather than another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers happy. The general terms in which they are written is one of their peculiar features. One would think that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories professing to deal with it can be, they were photographs of it, and that the writers, as in the following instance, had always the fear of the law of libel before their eyes:

We must now request our readers to accompany us into an obscure cul
de sac opening into a narrow street branching off Holborn. For many
reasons we do not choose to be more precise as to locality.

Of course in this cul de sac is a Private Inquiry Office, with a detective in it. But in defining even him the novelist gives himself no trouble to arouse excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny for the history of this interesting person, and, that being done, they may read about him or not, as they please. One would really think that the author of the story was also the proprietor of the periodical.

Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of this somewhat remarkable person have only to step with us into the little dusky room where he is seated, and we shall have much pleasure in introducing him to their notice.

A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, ’You may be introduced to him, or you may let it alone.’

The coolness with which everything is said and done in penny fiction is indeed most remarkable, and should greatly recommend it to that respectable class who have a horror of ‘sensation.’ In a story, for example, that purports to describe University life (and is as much like it as the camel produced from the German professor’s self-consciousness must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the affections of a young woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of the story recommends her to the consideration of his negro servant:

‘Talk to her, Monday,’ whispered Jack, ‘and see if she loves you.’

For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation.

Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop.

’It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really care for
Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,’ he said.

‘I congratulate you, Monday,’ answered Jack.

In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John Radford,
plumber and glazier, who was Ada’s father.

Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their daughter and her companions with that unstudied civility which contrasts so favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of many in a higher position. They were not prejudiced against Monday on account of his dark skin.

It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada’s choice.

Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, ’Well, for a coloured gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice mannered, though I think Ada’s been a little sly in telling us nothing about her engagement to the last.’

They did not know all.

Nor was it advisable that they should.

Still they knew something for example, that their new son-in-law was a black man, which one would have thought might have struck them as phenomenal. They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter of course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and glaziers, it must be thought as strange for one’s daughter to marry a black man as a lord. Yet, out of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing at all, but treats it as coolly as his dramatis personae do themselves. Now my notion would have been to make the bridegroom a black lord, and then to portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions of his mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by his colour, attracted on the other by his rank. But ‘sensation’ is evidently out of the line of the penny novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, then leaves both his characters and his readers to draw their own conclusions.

The total absence of local scenery from these half hundred romances is also curious, and becomes so very marked when the novelists are so imprudent as to take their dramatis personae out of England, that one can’t help wondering whether these gentlemen have ever been in foreign parts themselves, or even read about them. Here is the conclusion of a romance which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of brevity, but is unquestionably a little abrupt and vague:

A year has passed away, and we are far from England and the English
climate.

Whither ‘we’ have gone the author does not say, nor even indicate the hemisphere. It will be imagined, perhaps, that we shall find out where we are by the indication of the flora and fauna.

A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been climbing up an
arid road in the direction of a dark ridge.

Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the description: an ’arid road’ which may mean Siberia, and a ‘dark ridge’ which may mean the Himalayas.

The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. Birds twittered in their willow gorges, and it was a very glorious day. Arthur and Emily had passed the night at the ranche, and he had now taken her up to look at the mine which at all events had introduced them. He had previously taken her to see his mother’s grave, the mother whom he had so loved. The mine after some delay proved more prosperous than ever. It was not sold, but is the ‘appanage’ of the younger sons of the house of Dacres.

With the exception of the ‘ranche,’ it will be remarked that there is not one word in the foregoing description to fix locality. The mine and the ranche together seem indeed to suggest South America. But I ask for information do birds twitter there in willow gorges? Younger sons of noble families proverbially come off second best in this country, but if one of them found his only ‘appanage’ was a mine, he would surely with some justice make a remonstrance.

The readers of this class of fiction will not have Dumas at any price or, at all events, not at a penny. Mr. Collins tells us how ‘Monte Christo’ was once spread before them, and how they turned from that gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon their tripe and onions their nameless authors. But some of those who write for them have adopted one peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which disfigure the ‘Three Musketeers,’ and indeed all that great novelist’s works, are very frequent with them, which induces me to believe that they are paid by the line.

On the other hand, some affect fashionable description and conversation which are drawn out in ‘passages that lead to nothing’ of an amazing length.

‘Where have I been,’ replied Clyde with a carelessness which was half
forced ‘Oh, I have been over to Higham to see the dame.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Sir Edward, ‘and how is the poor old creature?’

‘Quite well,’ said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the menu of the
elaborate dinner. ‘Quite well, she sent her best respects,’ he added,
but he said nothing of the lodger, pretty Miss Mary Westlake.

And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and Grace came flowing in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed in one of Worth’s masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, and antique lace, he raised his eyes and looked at her with an earnest scrutiny so earnest that she paused with her hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a questioning glance.

‘Do you like my new dress?’ she said with a calm smile.

‘Your dress?’ he said. ‘Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.’ But to
himself he added, ‘Yes, they are alike, strangely alike.’

Which last remark may be applied with justice to the conversations of all our novelists. There appears no necessity for their commencement, no reason for their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the reader finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which he is extricated only at the end of the chapter, which is always, however, ‘to be continued.’

It is true that these story-tellers for the million generally keep ’a gallop for the avenue’ (an incident of a more or less exciting kind to finish up with), but it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly rises to a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. The following is a fair example:

But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a moment at another picture a sad and painful one. In one of those retreats, worse than a living tomb, where reside those whose reason is dead, though their bodies still live, is a small spare cell. The sole occupant is a woman, young and very beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet and gentle as a child; sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to witness; but the only word she utters is ‘Revenge,’ and on her hand she always wears a plain gold band with a cross of black pearls.

This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read the tale which preceded it, naturally interested me immensely. Here, thought I, is at last an exciting story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes in hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public endures so many blanks. I was quite prepared to have my blood curdled; my lips were ready for a full draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there was nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy.

This is what makes the success of penny fiction so remarkable; there is nothing whatever in the way of dramatic interest to account for it; nor of impropriety either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who congratulated him that there were no improper words in his dictionary, and received from that unconciliatory sage the reply, ’You have been looking for them, have you?’ I have carefully searched my fifty samples of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not found it. It is as pure as milk, or, at all events, as milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva Press, too, it does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers are rare; fraud is usually confined within what may be called its natural limits the lawyer’s office; the attention paid to the heroines not only by their heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable rivals, is generally of the most honourable kind; and platitude and dulness hold undisputed sway.

In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an example of the mediaeval melodrama; but ‘Ralpho the Mysterious’ is by no means thrilling. Indeed, when I remember that ‘Ivanhoe’ was once published in a penny journal and proved a total failure, and then contemplate the popularity of ‘Ralpho,’ I am more at sea as to what it is that attracts the million than ever.

‘Noble youth,’ cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, ’to you we must entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold here the list which has been made out of the troops which will come at the signal. To certain of our nobles we have entrusted certain of our corps d’armee, but unto you, Ralpho, we must entrust our horse, for in that service you can display that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made your name so famous.’

‘Sire,’ cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took the King’s
hand, pressing it to his lips, ’thou hast indeed honoured me by such
a reward, but I cannot accept it.’

‘How!’ cried the King; ‘hast thou so soon tired of my service?’

’Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop of my blood. But if I were to accept this command, I should cease to do the service for the cause which now it has pleased you to say I have done. No, sire, let me remain the guardian of my King his secret agent. I, with my sword alone, will defend my country and my King.’

’Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than any man
ever did before. Run no more danger.’

’Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be as I have
said.’

’It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret agent.
Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark ye, gentlemen,
when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if he were ourselves.’

‘We will,’ cried the nobles.

Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it on our
hero’s breast.

Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be ‘a secret agent’ to becoming a generalissimo of the Polish cavalry is as modest as it is original, Ralpho is too ‘goody-goody’ to be called ‘the Mysterious.’ He reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with self-interest, of those enterprising officers in fighting regiments who send in applications for their own V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest expectation of them.

I am inclined to think, however, from the following advertisement, that some author has been recently piling up the virtues of his hero too strongly for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, who, it is evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and are commonplace and conventional to the marrow of their bones: ’T.B. TIMMINS is informed that he cannot be promised another story like “Mandragora,” since, in deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes of readers have to be considered whose interest cannot be aroused by the impossible deeds of impossible creatures.’ Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what ‘deeds’ or ‘creatures’ do arouse the interest of this (to me) inexplicable public; for though I have before me the stories they obviously take delight in, why they do so I cannot tell.

At the ‘Answers to Correspondents,’ indeed, which form a leading feature in most of these penny journals, one may exclaim, with the colonel in ‘Woodstock,’ when, after many ghosts, he grapples with Wildrake: ’Thou at least art palpable.’ Here we have the real readers, asking questions upon matters that concern them, and from these we shall surely get at the back of their minds. But it is unfortunately not so certain that these ‘Answers to Correspondents’ are not themselves fictions, like all the rest only invented by the editor instead of the author, and coming in handy to fill up a vacant page. It is, to my mind, incredible that a public so every way different from that of the Mechanic’s Institute, and to whom mere information is likely to be anything but attractive, should be genuinely solicitous to learn that ’Needles were first made in England in Cheapside, in the reign of Queen Mary, by a negro from Spain;’ or that ’The family name of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, although the younger members of it call themselves Talbot.’

Even the remonstrance of ‘Our Correspondence Editor’ with a gentleman who wishes to learn ‘How to manufacture dynamite’ seems to me artificial; as though the idea of saying a few words in season against explosive compounds had occurred to him, without any particular opportunity having really offered itself for the expression of his views.

There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly genuine, and which prove that the readers of penny fiction are not so immersed in romance but that they have their eyes open to the main chance and their material responsibilities. ‘ANXIOUS TO KNOW,’ for example, is informed that ’The widow, unless otherwise decreed, keeps possession of furniture on her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;’ while SKIBBS is assured that ’After such a lapse of time there will be no danger of a warrant being issued for leaving his wife and family chargeable to the parish.’

As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage of discovery into these unknown latitudes, the penny journals are largely used for forming matrimonial engagements, and for adjudicating upon all questions of propriety in connection with the affections. ’It is just bordering on folly,’ ‘NANCY BLAKE’ is informed, ’to marry a man six years your junior.’ In answer to an inquiry from ‘LOVING OLIVIA’ whether ’an engaged gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without taking his young lady with him,’ she is told ’Yes; but we imagine he would not often do so.’

Some tender questions are mixed up with others of a more practical sort. ‘LADY HILDA’ is informed that ’it is very seldom children are born healthy whose father has married before he is three-and-twenty; that long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; and that washing the head will remove the scurf.’ ‘LEONE’ is assured that ’it is not necessary to be married in two churches, one being quite sufficient;’ that ’there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky to marry a person of the same complexion;’ and that ’a gentle aperient will remove nettle-rash.’

‘VIRGINIE’ (who, by the way, should surely be VIRGINIUS) is thus tenderly sympathised with:

’It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived of all opportunity of having a tete-a-tete with your betrothed, owing to her being obliged to entertain other company, although there are others of the family who can do so; still, as her mother insists upon it, and will not let you enjoy the society of her daughter uninterrupted, you might resort to a little harmless strategy, and whenever your stated evenings for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young lady to take a walk with you, or go to a place of amusement. She can then excuse herself to her friends without a breach of etiquette, and you can enjoy your tete-a-tete undisturbed.’

The photographs of lady correspondents which are received by the editors of most of these journals are apparently very numerous, and, if we may believe their description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It is no wonder they receive many applications of the following nature:

’CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, with a nice house and servants; being tired of bachelor life, wishes to receive the carte-de-visite of a dark, fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to twenty years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. She must be fond of music and children, and very loving and affectionate.’

Another doctor:

’Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, and who has at present an income of L120 a year, is desirous to make an immediate engagement with a lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a little money, so that by their united efforts he may soon become a member of a lucrative and honourable profession.’

How the ‘united efforts’ of two young people, however enthusiastic, can make a man an M.D. or an M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all things) is more than one can understand. The last advertisement I shall quote affects me nearly, for it is from an eminent member of my own profession:

’ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of an affectionate disposition, and fond of home, and the extent and pressing nature of whose work have prevented him from mixing much in society, would be glad to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. She must be of a pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, and domestic.’

If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis has established his popularity, I would like to know how he did it, and who he is. To discover this last is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear before the public in another guise. There is sometimes a melancholy pretence to the contrary put forth in the ‘Answers to Correspondents.’ ‘PHOENIX,’ for example, is informed that ’The story about which he inquires will not be published in book form at the time he mentions.’ But the fact is it will never be so published at all. It has been written, like all its congeners, for the unknown millions and for no one else.

Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it was stated of one of these penny journals (which has not forgotten to advertise the eulogy) that ’its novels, are equal to the best works of fiction to be got at the circulating libraries.’ The critic who so expressed himself must have done so in a moment of hilarity which I trust was not produced by liquor; for ’the best works of fiction to be got at the circulating libraries’ obviously include those of George Eliot, Trollope, Reade, Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am discussing are inferior to the worst. They are as crude and ineffective in their pictures of domestic life as they are deficient in dramatic incident; they are vapid, they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, and even of the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. There is now and then a description of the playing of some practical joke, such as tying two Chinamen’s tails together, the effect of the relation of which is melancholy in the extreme, but there is no approach to fun in the whole penny library. And yet it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of readers a fact which makes my mouth water like that of Tantalus.

When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown Public it is clear he was still hopeful of them. He thought it ‘a question of time’ only. ’The largest audience,’ he says, ’for periodical literature in this age of periodicals must obey the universal law of progress, and sooner or later learn to discriminate. When that period comes the readers who rank by millions will be the readers who give the widest reputations, who return the richest rewards, and who will therefore command the services of the best writers of their time.’ This prophecy has, curiously enough, been fulfilled in a different direction from that anticipated by him who uttered it. The penny papers that is, the provincial penny newspapers do now, under the syndicate system, command the services of our most eminent novel writers; but Penny Fiction proper that is to say, the fiction published in the penny literary journals is just where it was a quarter of a century ago.

With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its readers one would say this would be impossible, but as a matter of fact, the opportunity is not offered. The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; political events do not interest them, nor even social events, unless they are of the class described in the Police News, which, I remark and the fact is not without significance does not need to add fiction to its varied attractions.

But who, it will be asked, are the public who don’t read newspapers, and whose mental calibre is such that they require to be told by a correspondence editor that ’any number over the two thousand will certainly be in the three thousand’?

I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in question profess to be unable to give any information on the matter, that the majority are female domestic servants.

As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, that is a much more knotty question. My own theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper achieved his immense popularity by never going over the heads of his readers, and showing that poetry was, after all, not such a difficult thing to be understood, so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing very conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, have found the secret of success. Each reader says to himself (or herself), ’That is my thought, which I would have myself expressed in those identical words, if I had only known how.