Dr Lucy Sixsmith, St John's

lcs42@cam.ac.uk

 

Biographical Information

I studied English at Cambridge, graduating in 2010, and then worked as an English language teacher in Russia, Italy and the UK. I returned to Cambridge in 2017, completing my PhD, 'Handling Bibles in the Nineteenth Century', at Trinity College in 2023.

Research Interests

What do we do with books, and what do we do when we read? These questions are particularly interesting to me in relation to the nineteenth century, when industrialisation and technological change made books and print much cheaper and more ubiquitous. My research explores the use of books as objects as well as texts in this period, focusing on nineteenth-century bibles and the unexpected biographies behind the signs of use they still contain.

I'm interested in evangelical history, and the history of charismatic movements, worship and spiritual abuse. A trade book on this, When the Music Fades: Power, Surrender and the Soul Survivor Generation, is forthcoming with Canterbury Press.

I enjoy thinking about composition practices, verse and prose style, close reading and women's history. I teach practical criticism and critical practice, lyric, and nineteenth century literature. 

Selected Publications

When the Music Fades: Power, Surrender and the Soul Survivor Generation, Canterbury Press, 2026

‘Into separate brochures: stitched work and a new New Testament in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure’ in Books, Readers and Libraries in Fiction, ed. by Karen Attar and Andrew Nash (University of London Press, 2025) (https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cam/reader.action?docID=32223365&ppg=138&c=UERG)

"‘I went and prayed to have my name put down in the Missionaries’ book'": Gift Exchange and Bible Transactions in Britain and Antigua, 1834-1884’, Textual Practice, 36.10 (2022), 1753-1774 (https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2021.1971754)

‘“Injured Mutilated or Defaced”: How to Read a Bible in a Nineteenth-Century English Prison’, Book History, 24.2 (Fall 2021), 381-404 (https://doi.org/10.1353/bh.2021.0014)

‘Christina Rossetti’s Apocalypse: Rhythm and Deferral in The Face of the Deep’, The Cambridge Quarterly, 49.4 (December 2020), 357-371 (https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/bfaa028)