Laura Jean Libbey

[1] During the 1880s her stories were popular enough for Libbey to negotiate high paying exclusive contracts with specific papers.

[3] These serialized stories were later reprinted in dime novel format by publishers of cheap fiction such as George Munro, Arthur Westbrook, and John Lovell.

[3] According to The American Bookseller, Libbey's 1889 The Pretty Young Girl was "the hit of the season" in selling 60,000 copies in thirty days.

[1][3] Three of Libbey's stories were made into films: When Love Grows Cold (1926), A Poor Girl's Romance (1927), and In a Moment of Temptation (1928).

[3] Known as the "working-girl" novelist,[8] Libbey's stories were romances about employed young women without family support.

[1] Two years after Libbey's mother died in 1896 she married a Brooklyn lawyer by the name of Van Mater Stilwell.