Grub Street [ Cities / Literary & Artistic genres ]
… Hackney, which originally meant a horse for hire, and was soon broadened to other forms of services for hire. Significantly, its meanings later also included prostitutes, 3 so that describing writing for hire as ‘hack writing’ … unhappy circumstances of a Narrow Fortune, hath forced us to do that for our Subsistence.’ 4 3 . The 1699 Dictionary of Cant notes: 'Hacks or Hackneys, hirelings. Hackney-whores, Common Prostitutes. Hackney-Horses, to be let to any body. … Hackney-Scriblers, Poor Hirelings Mercenary Writers' (B.E., A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (London: W. Hawes, 1699)). 4 . Quoted in Howard W. Troyer, Ned Ward of Grub Street: A Study of Sub-Literary …
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