The weekly circulation of the most successful
of the five, is now publicly advertised (and, as
I am informed, without exaggeration) at half
a Million. Taking the other four as attaining
altogether to a circulation of another half
million (which is probably much under the
right estimate) we have a sale of a
Million weekly for five penny journals. Reckoning
only three readers to each copy sold, the
result is a public of three millions—a public
unknown to the literary world; unknown, as
disciples, to the whole body of professed
critics; unknown, as customers, at the great
libraries and the great publishing-houses;
unknown, as an audience, to the
distinguished English writers of our own time. A
reading public of three millions which lies
right out of the pale of literary civilisation,
is a phenomenon worth examining—
a mystery which the sharpest man among
us may not find it easy to solve.

In the first place, who are the three
million—the Unknown Public-- as I have
ventured to call them ? The known reading
public—the minority already referred to —
are easily discovered and classified. There is
the religious public, with booksellers and
literature of its own, which includes reviews
and newspapers as well as books. There is
the public which reads for information, and
devotes itself to Histories, Biographies,
Essays, Treatises, Voyages and Travels.
There is the public which reads for amusement,
and patronises the Circulating Libraries
and the railway book-stalls. There is,
lastly, the public which reads nothing but
newspapers. We all know where to lay our
hands on the people who represent these
various classes. We see the books they like
on their tables. We meet them out at dinner,
and hear them talk of their favourite authors.
We know, if we are at all conversant with
literary matters, even the very districts of
London in which certain classes of people
live who are to be depended upon beforehand
as the picked readers for certain kinds of
books. But what do we know of the enormous
outlawed majority—of the lost literary
tribes-- of the prodigious, the overwhelming
three millions? Absolutely nothing.

I, myself—and I say it to my sorrow—
have a very large circle of acquaintance.
Ever since I undertook the interesting task
of exploring the Unknown Public, I have
been trying to discover among my dear friends
and my bitter enemies, both alike on my
visiting list, a subscriber to a penny novel-
journal—and I have never yet succeeded in
the attempt. I have heard theories started
as to the probable existence of penny novel-
journals in kitchen dressers, in the back
parlours of Easy Shaving Shops, in the greasy
seclusion of the boxes at the small Chop
Houses. But I have never yet met with any
man, woman, or child who could answer the
inquiry, "Do you subscribe to a penny journal?"
plainly in the affirmative, and who
could produce the periodical in question. I
have learnt, years ago, to despair of ever
meeting with a single woman, after a certain
age, who has not had an offer of marriage.
I have given up, long since, all idea of ever
discovering a man who has himself seen a
ghost, as distinguished from that other
inevitable man who has had a bosom friend
who has unquestionably seen one. These are
two among many other aspirations of a wasted
life which I have definitely given up. I have
now to add one more to the number of my
vanished illusions.

In the absence, therefore, of any positive
information on the subject, it is only possible
to pursue the investigation which occupies
these pages by accepting such negative
evidence as may help us to guess with more or
less accuracy, at the social position, the habits,
the tastes, and the average intelligence of the
Unknown Public. Arguing carefully by
inference, we may hope, in this matter, to
arrive, by a circuitous road, at something like
a safe, if not a satisfactory, conclusion.

To begin with, it may be fairly assumed—
seeing that the staple commodity of each one
of the five journals before me, is composed of
Stories—that the Unknown Public reads for
its amusement more than for its information.

Judging by my own experience, I should
be inclined to add, that the Unknown Public
looks to quantity rather than quality in
spending its penny a week on literature. In
buying my five specimen copies, at five different
shops, I purposely approached the
individual behind the counter, on each occasion,
in the character of a member of the Unknown
Public—say, Number Three Million and One
—who wished to be guided in laying out a
penny entirely by the recommendation of the
shopkeeper himself. I expected, by this
course of proceeding, to hear a little popular
criticism, and to get at what the conditions
of success might be, in a branch of literature
which was quite new to me. No such result,
however, occurred in any case. The dialogue
between buyer and seller always took some
such practical turn as this:

Number Three Million and One.—"I want
to take in one of the penny journals. Which
do you recommend ?"

Enterprising Publisher.--  "Some likes one,
and some likes another. They're all good
pennorths. Seen this one?"

"Yes"

"Seen that one?"

"No"

"Look what a pennorth!"

"Yes-- but about the stories in this one?
Are they as good, now, as the stories in that
one ?"

"Well, you see, some likes one, and some
likes another. Sometimes I sells more of one,
and sometimes I sells more of another. Take
'em all the year round, and there ain't a pin,
as I knows of, to choose between 'em. There's
just about as much in one as there is in