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As the present volume reveals in remarkable detail life was immensely precarious for those who tried to make their living by the pen. Party writers rarely received adequate remuneration for their pains, and Oldmixon, always short of money, was reduced to writing supplicating letters to publishers such as genial Jacob Tonson. It is letters such as these which, when taken in conjunction with Oldmixon's own Memoirs of the Press (1742), offer unique details about the life of the professional writer, and reveal the significance of the sub-title of Professor Rogers's book: Politics and Professional Authorship in Early Hanoverian England. Hardship had forced Oldmixon to turn from writing plays and poetry to writing political pamphlets and essays. Yet despite submitting to labour at the Press like a Horse in a Mill (as James Ralph graphically put it)Oldmixon was never financially secure.