A Weaver-Poet and the Plague

A Weaver-Poet and the Plague is a microhistory and work of literary criticism focusing on William Muggins, a literate weaver-poet in seventeenth-century London. This volume examines the life of Muggins, an impoverished man who envisioned a commonwealth based on mutual aid and labor. The narrative follows his struggle with debt and imprisonment, leading to his relocation from the Poultry to the densely populated parish of St. Olave's in Southwark during the plague of 1603.

The book analyzes Muggins's minor epic, London's Mourning Garment, to explore the social and economic hardships of the middling sort. By blending history and literary criticism, the text reconstructs the professional networks and radical religious culture of the Tudor and Elizabethan era. A Weaver-Poet and the Plague provides a street-level perspective of Great Britain, giving voice to a vulnerable class often ignored in European history.