Beginning in the late 1930s, critics no longer took her seriously and sometimes expressed frustration about the continued popularity of her work in the face of bad reviews. In the post-World War II era, she was regarded as merely a popular author who wrote for and about the working classes. She became a favorite target of parodists, including Langston Hughes, who parodied her racially themed novel "Imitation of Life" as "Limitations of Life". Her own editor, Kenneth McCormick, described her as a "fairly corny artist" but a "wonderful storyteller". She was also called the "Queen of the Sob Sisters", "sob sister" being a term used in the early 20th century for female reporters who wrote sentimental human interest stories designed to evoke an emotional response from female readers. Hurst herself recognized that she was "not a darling of the critics" but said, "I have a vast popular audience — it warms me, like a furnace."