The author analyzes how the concept of labor as a calling, which was assisted by early modern experiments in democracy, print, and Protestant religion, had a lasting effect on the history of authorship as a profession. In so doing, she reveals the construction of an approach to early modern authorship that values diligence.

Contents: Introduction: forging authorship; 'Tis all I have': print authorship and occupational identity in Isabella Whitney's A Sweet Nosgay; The uses of resentment: Nashe, Parnassus, and the poet's mystery; 'Laborious, yet not base': Jonson, Vulcan, and poetic labor; The new bourgeois hero: the individualist project of John Taylor 'the water poet'; 'One line a day': George Wither's process; Bibliography; Index.

Laurie Ellinghausen is associate professor in the UMKC Department of English Language and Literature, University of Missouri-Kancis City.