In the 1930s, Dorothy Parker wrote to Alexander Woollcott that the “Kiss of Death has come.” She was referring, in her inimitably morbid way, to a contract from the Paramount Film Corporation, and in so doing became one of a long line of writers to establish themselves as different than and superior to the Hollywood script factories, while welcoming that vampirish — but lucrative — kiss of death. Behind Parker's remark lies an already long history of writers struggling to reconceive their authorial functions, their professional standing, and the nature of their literary work in an age of mass culture. One of the most remarkable moments in that struggle was Theodore Dreiser's suit in 1931 against Paramount-Publix Corporation, which was brought in at attempt to halt the release of an (in his opinion) “inartistic” version of An American Tragedy (1925).