SOURCE: Charvat, William. “Author and Publisher.” In Literary Publishing in America, 1790-1850, pp. 38-60. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959.

In the following excerpt, Charvat explains the relationship between nineteenth-century American authors and the evolving publishing business.

The first era of successful professional authorship in America began in the years 1819 to 1821 with the publication of Irving's Sketch Book and James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy. The twenty years that followed were notable for a tremendous expansion of the national economy. Except for minor recessions in the late twenties and in 1834 and 1837, which the book trade duly reflected,¹ it was, to use Irving's phrase, a time of “unexampled prosperity.” Equally unexampled in the history of the profession were Irving's income of ＄23,500 in the year 1829—all from books—and Cooper's average of ＄6,500 a year in the 1820's. No first-rate author of the brilliant fifties—the years of the American renaissance—came even...