Explores the connection between writers desire to prove that they work and parallel histories of craft and artisanal revival Offers the first sustained study of the connection between writers desire to prove that they work and parallel forms of craft and artisanal revival Offers a long view on writers consciously demonstrating work running from the early nineteenth century into the period of modernism Addresses timely concerns including anti capitalism histories of slavery and nostalgia for physical production Combines a broad history of ideas with close textual readings that respect the particularity of writers decisions and the formal character of literature as art Encompasses 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

The Work of Words: Literature, Craft, and the Labour of Mind in Britain, 1830-1940 PDF

The list of books you might like