Title: Hired pens
First published: 1997
Description: Hired Pens tells the story of the class of full-time independent professional writers who emerged in America in the 1830s and '40s and flourished during the great age of print that began after the Civil War and continued into the 1960s.

While most accounts of the writing life focus on high-culture artists, Hired Pens treats authors who pursued the shifting popular tastes of Grub Street. Likewise it treats a literary marketplace that includes not only novels and poetry but gift annuals, story papers, general-circulation magazines, dime novels, pulp and slick magazines, newspaper syndicates, and paperback originals.
Subjects: American literature, Authors and publishers, Authorship, Economic aspects, Economic aspects of Authorship, History, History and criticism, Journalism, Literature publishing, New York Times reviewed, Authors, american, Publishers and publishing, united states
Places: United States
Time periods: 19th century, 20th century
LC classification: PS88 .W37 1997