Marcus Waithe is University Senior Lecturer; and Fellow in English, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. His published books include Thinking through Style: Non-Fiction Prose of the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. with Michael Hurley (OUP, 2018), The Labour of Literature in Britain and France: Authorial Work Ethics, ed. with Claire White (Palgrave, 2018) and William Morris’s Utopia of Strangers: Victorian Medievalism and the Ideal of Hospitality (D.S. Brewer, 2006).

• PrefaceIntroductionI. ANXIOUS VOCATIONSChapter 1. Carlyle’s ‘Author Craft’i. Books and Buildingsii. Carlyle’s ‘Craftmanship' iii. The Pen and the HammerChapter 2. Ford Madox Brown Among the Brain-Workersi. Seeming Idlenessii. Idle Observersiii. Disciplines of a DiaristII. WRITERS AT WORKChapter 3. Barrett Browning’s Poetic Vocationi. ‘Song is work’: Barrett Browning’s Poetic Labourii. ‘The writer bodily’: Women and Workiii. Letters, Invalidism, and Poetic LabourChapter 4. Participant Observers: Gladstone, Ruskin, and Morrisi. Gladstone’s Odyssean Toolshopii. John Ruskin, Professor of Diggingiii. Morris’s Song-CraftIII. CRAFT CONSCIOUSNESSChapter 5. Songs of the Forgei. Harmonious Blacksmithsii. Nail-bearers: Ruskin’s Fors Clavigeraiii. Hopkins’s Poetic AnvilChapter 6. Modernism and the Maker i. ‘My mind strikes work’: Olive Schreiner and the Ecstatic Wordii. Gill’s Letter-Craftiii. Rusty Chisels: Pound, Prejudice, and Poetic ApprenticeshipConclusion: Writing as Working

The Work of Words is an excellent book, notable for its original argument, wealth of examples, depth of knowledge and elegant and quotable style. It is also admirable for the real depth of understanding it brings to the complex political affiliations of the period it describes.