This wide-ranging literary study reveals authorship as a vocation of brilliance shadowed by hardship, rivalry, and sacrifice. Moving from the poverty, criticism, illness, vanity, and disappointment that burden men of letters to the bitter quarrels that divide them, it blends biography, satire, criticism, and anecdote into a vivid portrait of literary life. The opening argument is clear: writers are admired, yet often poorly rewarded, and those who live by the pen may suffer financial insecurity, isolation, and moral compromise. The book examines "authors by profession," exposing the temptations of patronage, politics, and paid writing through figures such as Guthrie, Arnall, Amhurst, Drake, and Smollett, whose talents were matched by neglect, prosecution, exhaustion, or despair. It also mounts a spirited defense of literary property, insisting that authors create enduring value while booksellers and printers too often reap the profits. Alongside these social and economic concerns, the work celebrates English prose through Roger Ascham and stages memorable literary conflicts, from Marvell's devastating reply to Parker to the lively world of D'Avenant and the wits. It is at once a defense of writers and a sober meditation on the cost of genius. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.