Before going to Cambridge he had published some verses in Leigh Hunt's Journal, and while still an undergraduate put out a volume of Stories from Boccaccio in 1852 and one of Poems in 1853.

[4] Payn then settled down in the Lake District to a literary career and contributed regularly to Household Words and Chambers's Journal.

[6] Thereafter he was engaged in writing novels, including Richard Arbour or the Family Scapegrace (1861),[7] Married Beneath Him (1865), Carlyon's Year (1868), A County Family (1869), By Proxy (1878), A Confidential Agent (1880), Thicker Than Water (1883), The Canon's Ward (1883), A Grape from a Thorn, The Talk of the Town (1885), and The Heir of the Ages (1886).

[8] In 1883 Payn succeeded Leslie Stephen as editor of the Cornhill Magazine and continued there until his health broke down in 1896.

His publications included a Handbook to the English Lakes (1859), and various volumes of essays: Maxims by a Man of the World (1869), Some Private Views (1881), Some Literary Recollections (1884).