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This article focuses on the professional writing of women in the transformation phase around 1800. Referring specifically to the woman of letters Helmina von Chézy (1783-1856) and her family, which participated in the literary market over four generations, it asks how authors could use paper(s) as assets or resources. It is shown that writersʼ papers were collected and kept as material evidence of life, that they could be an indicator of financial status and provide insight into financial practices, and that they were used particularly to position oneself (as a writer) and to relate to others. Within changing personal and historical contexts, the writing work of family members was based ultimately, in varying forms and shapes, on the logics of their social relations, lived as well as negotiated and recorded on paper. Thus, the papers used and inscribed in the family can be conceptualized as a multi-perspective kaleidoscope, offering new views on central aspects and mechanisms of writerly economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]