This innovative study investigates the emergence and impact of the lower middle class on British print culture through the figure of the office clerk. This interdisciplinary work offers important insights into a previously neglected area of social and book history, and explores key works by George Gissing, Forster and JB Priestley.

JONATHAN WILD is a Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His published and forthcoming work includes articles on George Gissing, First World War literature and John O'London's Weekly. Wild is currently working on a study of British 'middlebrow' literature in the inter-war period.