Working Verse in Victorian Scotland

Kirstie Blair holds a Chair in English Studies at the University of Strathclyde. She previously worked at the universities of Stirling, Glasgow, and Oxford. She is author of two monographs on Victorian poetry, both published with Oxford University Press, and a wide selection of articles and book chapters, largely focused on aspects of Victorian literature and culture. She recently published an anthology of working-class newspaper verse, The Poets of the People's Journal, with the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. From 2018 to 2021, Professor Blair is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project 'Piston, Pen & Press: Literary Cultures in the Industrial Workplace.' She is also the current Director and the founder of the collaborative Scottish Centre for Victorian and Neo-Victorian Studies.

Blair more than succeeds in making these interventions; her thoroughly impressive revisionist study is a crucial and much-needed contribution to each of these intersecting areas.

• Introduction 1: The Work of Verse 2: Reforming the Social Circle: Nursery Verse, Poetic Community, and the Politics of Whistle-Binkie 3: Stands Scotland Where it Did? Nostalgia, Improvement, and the Uses of the Land 4: The Measure of Industry 5: Humour, Satire, and the Rise of the Bad Poet Afterword Bibliography