ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 Volume 6 Issue 1 Volume 6.1 (Spring 2016) Article 1 2016 “Abused, neglected,—unhonoured,—unrewarded”: The Economics of Authorial Labor in the Writings of Mary Robinson Jennifer L. Airey University of Tulsa,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/abo Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Airey, Jennifer L. (2016) "“Abused, neglected,—unhonoured,—unrewarded”: The Economics of Authorial Labor in the Writings of Mary Robinson," ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830: Vol. 6 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. https://www.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.6.1.1 Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol6/iss1/1 This Scholarship is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. “Abused, neglected,—unhonoured,—unrewarded”: The Economics of Authorial Labor in the Writings of Mary Robinson Abstract This essay examines one of the central preoccupations of Mary Robinson’s authorial career, a concern with the poor financial treatment of authors. Writers, Robinson suggests, are demeaned by predatory publishers, heartless or anti-intellectual aristocratic patrons, and a disinterested, distractible reading public, none of whom care to compensate the author for the labors of her pen. In a culture that neither recognizes nor rewards female intellect, women authors are particularly vulnerable, but Robinson’s criticisms transcend the problems caused by gender alone; male authors, too, could fall into penury when their labor was insufficientlyalued.