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The obsolete noun penny-a-liar is a jocular variant of the derogatory noun penny-a-liner, which designated a journalist who was paid at the rate of a penny a line—hence any person who produced mediocre journalistic work. This variant implies that such journalists fabricated falsehoods.
—Cf. ‘penny-a-line’: meanings and origin.
The noun penny-a-liar occurred, for example in Gamblers Hurt State, published in the Tampa Morning Tribune (Tampa, Florida, USA) of Thursday 22nd October 1925 [page 6-A, column 3]:
The men who come here [i.e., to Florida] merely to speculate are not doing the state any good. In fact, they are injuring it. They furnish the penny-a-liar fellows material for their attacks on the State.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun penny-a-liar that I have found:
1-: From The Lies of The Bucks Herald, published in The Aylesbury News, and Advertiser for Bucks and the Surrounding Counties (Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England) of Saturday 10th August 1839 [page 5, column 2]—the British journalist and author Henry Thomas Ryde (c. 1793-1868) was the proprietor and editor of The Bucks Herald (Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England):
Once a Reformer, Ryde now lets himself for hire, and receives the wages of iniquity in the shape of a salary for fabricating and vending lies to answer the vile purposes of his Grace (graceless, rather) the Duke of Buckingham. […] A man who has been a penny-a-liner may easily become a penny-a-liar; and if Ryde receives but a penny each for every lie that appears in his Bucks Herald, his salary of £400 would be more than made up in the course of the year.
2-: From The Commonwealth (Frankfort, Kentucky, USA) of Tuesday 26th May 1840 [page 3, column 3]:
From the New York Commercial Advertiser
“Attention the Universe!” “By kingdoms to the right wheel, march!” Such are the words of command which the boys sometimes utter, in irony, as a commentary upon the swaggering of a pompous militia captain. We were reminded of them by the bulletin issued by Amos Kendall on resigning the office of Postmaster General, and addressed to the public, in order, as he says, “to satisfy the whole world that he is not dissatisfied with the President,” &c. &c. Take notice, therefore, King of Siam, and thou of Timbucto—Ali Pacha, and thou war-chief of the Snake Indians—yea, all nations, Esquimaux and Chinese, Turcomans and Tuscaroras, Burmese and Britishers, Pindarees and Peruvians, and the Texians besides—that Amos Kendall—resigned, though not dissatisfied—has turned penny-a-liar for the Globe.
3-: From Intended Courtesies to the Emperor Nicholas, published in The Satirist or, The Censor of the Times (London, England) of Sunday 9th June 1844 [page 181, column 1]:
Notwithstanding the vigilance of the penny-a-liners, who vie with the police inspectors in their delicate attention to the Czar, and who relate, in a multitude of words, all they see, and a great deal which they don’t see, there are yet a great many incidents connected with the imperial visit unrecorded. […]
[…] Monckton Milnes 1, at the request, we understand of Lord Dudley Stuart 2, has undertaken to soften the heart of the Muscovite by immortal verse. […]MONCKTON MILNES TO THE EMPEROR.
In spite of denials,
You’re here at last, Nick!
With you’re [sic] rides and “embracings”
We’re daily made sick.
The penny-a-liars are
Making the most
Of your shakings of hands,
In Times, Herald, and Post;
Such Gibbons will tell us
Before you go off,
How you eat, how you smoke,
How you sneeze, how you cough.
1 Monckton Milnes (1809-1885) was a British poet and politician.
2 The British politician Lord Dudley Stuart (1803-1854) was an advocate of the cause of the Eastern-European peoples against Russia.
4-: From Auriol. Fragment of a Romance (London: Chapman and Hall, 1850), by the British historical novelist William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) [chapter 3: The Hand and the Cloak, page 35]:
“Oh! if you could but have a glimpse of Old London, you would not be able to endure the modern city. The very atmosphere was different from that which we now breathe, charged with the smoke of myriads of sea-coal fires; and the old picturesque houses had a charm about them, which the present habitations, however commodious, altogether want.”
“You talk like one o’ them smart chaps they calls, and werry properly, penny-a-liars,” observed Ginger. “But you make me long to ha’ lived i’ those times.”
5-: From The Fall River Monitor (Fall River, Massachusetts, USA) of Saturday 24th September 1853 [page 2, column 4]:
A woman in Mississippi has lately become the mother of seven children at a birth.
We find the above going the rounds of the papers without however any credit. It is doubtless a big lie, manufactured by some penny-a-liar.
The noun penny-a-liar gave rise to the verbal form penny-a-lying. The earliest occurrence of this verbal form that I have found is from The Satirist: Or, The True Censor of the Times (London, England) of Saturday 10th February 1849 [page 67, column 2]:
The “reporting world” seems to be at a rather low ebb. A reporter advertises that he will qualify parties for a “profession” for one guinea. We know that the professions of these gentry are sometimes very extravagant, as may be easily perceived in the “penny-a-lying” system.
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