I apply for a 6-month research sabbatical to complete a monograph entitled Socialism and British Literature: A People to Come. The sabbatical will include a 2-month research stay at Roehampton University in London. The book proposes a new interpretation of the cultural history of the British left and a theoretical investigation of the relationship between politics and literature more generally. Through detailed readings of key texts in the history of British working-class and social literature, this monograph identifies a literary discourse committed to the idea of socialism as an open and contingent political project without necessary ideological determinations or outcomes. The book argues that the idea of the people, understood as a collective subject that is always missing and yet to come, lies at the heart of this literary and political imaginary. Socialism and British Literature: A People to Come will make a substantial contribution to contemporary debates about the cultural and aesthetic legacies of nineteenth and twentieth century politics. Additionally, the book offers a new theoretical paradigm, anchored in contemporary theories of utopia and populism, for the analysis of socialism as a body of ideas.