(1) From Robert Folkenflik:

A few relevant books are:
Michael T. Gilmore, American Romanticism and the Marketplace
R. Jackson Wilson, Figures of Speech: American Writers and the Literary Marketplace

For an excellent account of a number of issues in an English context:
Mark Rose, Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright

I've been doing some work in this area over a long period. The most pertinent pieces (again mainly English) are:

"The Artist as Hero in the Eighteenth Century," Yearbook of English Studies, 12 (1982): 91-108.

"Patronage and the Poet-Hero," Huntington Library Quarterly, 48 (1985): 363-79.

(2) From Susanna Ashton:

If you are considering REPRESENTATIONS of authorship in the United States during the nineteenth century, you might do well with Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall (1855?), a semi-autobiographical novel, in which the heroine is a professional writer. I believe Rutgers University press came out with a new edition in 1986 as part of the American Women Writers series. [It did; and it remains in print.--DT]