The experience of P. K. Rosegger, the greatest novelist of Styria, whose popular works are read not only in the palace, but also in the hut, is contrary to that of most writers; he finds that with him lamp-light and night-work are most conducive to literary fertility, and that he can work with greater ease on dark, gloomy days than in fine weather. His manuscripts are generally committed to the press as they were originally composed, except for additions that fill the margins which the author leaves for that purpose when writing. Poetry comes to him spontaneously when he takes his exercise in the field or garden, so that all he has to do when he gets home is to write it down; but he can compose prose only at the writing-desk. After a rest of several days he writes with great ease and velocity; in fact, writing is a necessity to him. On the average, he writes three hours a day. He is often forced to write while disinclined, to provide for the maintenance of a large family.
George Parsons Lathrop thus speaks of the habits of work of Dr. William A. Hammond, one of the more recent additions to our novel-writers: "Dr. Hammond's habits of work are something which should interest all brain laborers. At a moderately early hour in the morning he seats himself in his consulting-room to receive patients, and he remains indoors until two in the afternoon. Then he drives out and walks. On certain days he has medical lectures to deliver. His spare time in the afternoon is devoted to taking the air, reading, or diverting himself. After dinner and any social recreation that may be in hand he sits down at his desk again by ten or eleven o'clock, and writes until two in the morning. 'I do it,' he says, 'because I like it. It amuses and refreshes me.' How he manages to endure this constant sitting up is something of a marvel, considering that so much of his energies must be consumed by professional work. He seems to be always at leisure and unharassed, and lives comfortably, not denying himself a reasonable portion of stimulants and tobacco."
Literary partnerships are common in France, but in England they are confined almost exclusively to dramatists. The one well-known exception was that of Messrs. Besant and Rice. Mr. Rice's partnership with Mr. Besant began in 1871, and ended with the death of Mr. Rice. "It arose," explains Mr. Besant, "out of some slight articles which I contributed to his magazine, and began with the novel called 'Ready-Money Mortiboy.' Of this eleven years' fellowship and intimate, almost daily, intercourse, I can say only that it was carried on throughout without a single shadow of dispute or difference. James Rice was eminently a large-minded man, and things which might have proved great rocks of offence to some, he knew how to treat as the trifles they generally are."