CHAPTER III
THE STORY-TELLER
A glance over the literary annals of the time during which Dickens was apprentice to his craft shows us, in fiction, the names of Disraeli, Peacock, Mrs. Norton, Bulwer, Ainsworth, and Marryat. One and all signify little to the coming master, though he professed a high esteem for the romances of Lord Lytton, and with Captain Marryat shared the tradition of the eighteenth-century novelists. Tennyson had already come forth; Browning had printed a poem; Sartor Resartus had "got itself published," and was waiting for readers. In another sphere, Tracts for the Times were making commotion; regarding which matter the young student of life doubtless had already his opinion. It is of more interest to note that in 1832 were established Chambers' Journal and Knight's Penny Magazine; indicative of the growth of a new public, a class of readers which no author had hitherto directly addressed, and which was only to be reached by publication
