[Billthedrill]

Name a great work of literature that was written specifically to make the author a load of cash.

All of Shakespeare's plays. Everything Samuel Johnson wrote, including his aphorism "no one but a blockhead writes save for money." The issue is an old one.

[wideawake]

Shakespeare never made a farthing from publishing his plays. He made his money by putting together performances of them for a paying audience.

If you read Boswell's Life of Johnson you'll see that Johnson himself barely scraped by. Johnson saw writing as a way of feeding himself, not of making a fortune.

And Johnson wrote many things, poems and sermons specifically, which he never made any money from but which were intended solely for the enjoyment of his circle.

I say again, no great work of literature was ever made in contemplation of profit - just in contemplation of generating enough income to write another day.