penny-a-linern.

1832 J. Wilson Noctes Ambrosianae lxiv, in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Nov. 874 The penny-a-liners..[howled at] the farthing-a-speechifiers.

1840 W. M. Thackeray Paris Sketch Bk. I. 83 This country is surely the paradise of painters and penny-a-liners.

1871 F. Gale Echoes Cricket Fields xiv. 90 He went in last, and joined Mr. Attfield, and between them ninety-nine runs were scored; or as a slang penny-a-liner would say, ‘the two last gents wrote up a century bar one.’

1915 F. Hodgson Burnett Lost Prince vi. 57 He said your father would think he was a swell, even if he was only a penny-a-liner on newspapers.

1947 W. S. Maugham Creatures of Circumstance 9 He wouldn't have liked it if some damned penny-a-liner had made fun of Evie's effort in one of the papers.

1996 Spectator 31 Aug. 18/3 The original Grub Street was one of these manifestations, where penny-a-liners lived in bare-boarded garrets.

1872 Punch 5 Oct. 143/2 The note of preparation, to use a penny-a-linerism, is now sounding for the winter theatrical campaign.