Living as an author in the Romantic period - Matthew Sangster

This book explores how authors profited from their writings in the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, contending that the most tangiblebenefits were social, rather than financial or aesthetic. It examines authors'interactions with publishers; the challenges of literary sociability; the vexedconstruction of enduring careers; the factors that prevented most aspiringwriters (particularly the less privileged) from accruing significant rewards; therhetorical professionalisation of periodicals; and the manners in whichemerging paradigms and technologies catalysed a belated transformation inhow literary writing was consumed and perceived.