Work of Words

Explores the connection between writers' desire to prove that they 'work' and parallel histories of craft and artisanal revivalOffers the first sustained study of the connection between writers' desire to prove that they 'work' and parallel forms of craft and artisanal revivalOffers a long view on writers consciously demonstrating 'work', running from the early nineteenth century into the period of modernismAddresses timely concerns, including anti-capitalism, histories of slavery, and nostalgia for physical productionCombines a broad history of ideas with close textual readings that respect the particularity of writers' decisions and the formal character of literature as artEncompasses an ambitiously wide range of genres and sources, including poetry, novels, letters, visual art, journalism, lectures, exhibition catalogues, radio broadcasts, and diariesRather than focus on the well-known 'dignity of literature' debate, whereby authors such as Dickens sought to establish authorship as a middle-class profession, The Work of Words considers the alternative path of middle-class writers who re-presented literature as a manual craft. Unlike many works in the field, it extends beyond the mid-Victorian novel as a generic and historical focus, to address its aesthetic and political afterlife right up to the periods of Guild Socialism, modernism and European fascism. Given the tilt of world trade towards China, and more recent supply chain shocks, it is not just writers who are haunted by a lost world of material production, but much of the de-industrialised West. By studying the Victorian attempt to make composition (and related mental processes) palpable, this book takes the long view on questions that still trouble us, and responds to recent concerns, whether as manifested through the revival of craft and workshop culture, or debates about the visibility, weight and worth of the humanities.