This monograph focuses on the ever topical issues of work, enterprise and career in the English language, literature and culture.

Its first part is devoted to language studies and analyses the metaphors of work in the English translation of the Polish Kodeks pracy, the functioning of modal expressions in the UK's Employment Rights Acts of 1996, and the problems that legal terms and expressions pose for Polish translators; the fourth chapter examines manifold aspects involved in designing ESP courses that should substantially enhance students' career prospects.

Literary studies deal with the issues of women's work in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, and social and professional advancement in John Braine's Room at the Top, as well as the process of professionalisation of literary creation in 18th-century England.

Texts under the heading "culture" examine modern factories in the Victorian Age and their vindication by Andrew Ure, labour market in 19th-century outcast London, servants and their work as presented by Mary Beeton, and the successful career of Florence Nightingale who transformed nursing into a modern profession available for women.