Lillo spent the greater part of his life as a working jeweller in the Poultry; occupying the intervals of his leisure in the production of dramatic works, some of them of acknowledged power and merit.

Izaak Walton was a linendraper in Fleet Street, reading much in his leisure hours, and storing his mind with facts for future use in his capacity of biographer.

De Foe was by turns horse-factor, brick and tile maker, shopkeeper, author, and political agent.
Samuel Richardson successfully combined literature, with business; writing his novels in his back-shop in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and selling them over the counter in his front-shop.

William Hutton, of Birmingham, also successfully combined the occupations of bookselling and authorship.

He says, in his Autobiography, that a man may live half a century and not be acquainted with his own character.