Laura Jean Libbey
Laura Jean Libbey (March 22, 1862 – October 25, 1924), was an American writer.Libbey lived most of her life in Brooklyn, New York.[1] Her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Libbey.[2] She began writing around age 20.[1] Over the course of her career
... Read more
Laura Jean Libbey (March 22, 1862 – October 25, 1924), was an American writer.Libbey lived most of her life in Brooklyn, New York.[1] Her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Libbey.[2] She began writing around age 20.[1] Over the course of her career, she completed 82 novels.[1]
Some of Libbey's stories first appeared as serialized stories in papers such as The New York Family Story Paper, The Fireside Companion, and the New York Ledger.[1] During the 1880s her stories were popular enough for Libbey to negotiate high paying exclusive contracts with specific papers.[3] These serialized stories were later reprinted in dime novel format by publishers of cheap fiction such as George Munro, Arthur Westbrook, and John Lovell.[1]
Over fifteen million copies of her books were published.[3] According to The American Bookseller, Libbey's 1889 The Pretty Young Girl was "the hit of the season" in selling 60,000 copies in thirty days.[4] At one point, Libbey reported she was earning $60,000 a year, but this number may have been exaggerated.
Three of Libbey's stories were made into films: When Love Grows Cold (1926), A Poor Girl's Romance (1927), and In a Moment of Temptation (1928).Libbey also wrote 120 plays, many based on her previously published stories.
Known as the "working-girl" novelist[9], Libbey's stories were romances about employed young women without family support.[1] Her earliest stories (published in the 1880s) were moralistic and focused on the difficulties of factory work. [3] The stories published in the 1890s and 1900s focused more on the process of finding an appropriate romantic partner.
Less
