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PENNY FICTION.

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, VOL. IX. No. 47.

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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 openinginto 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 personæ 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 persone 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 elimate.

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. IHe 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 one 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 phrenzy 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 tal 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 whetted 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 limit-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 medieval 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'armée, but unto you, Ralpho, we must entrust our horse, for

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