Dr Sixsmith studied English at Cambridge, and then worked as an English language teacher in Russia, Italy and the UK, returning to Cambridge for postgraduate study in 2017. She completed her PhD, 'Handling Bibles in the Nineteenth Century', in 2023.
At undergraduate level, Dr Sixsmith teaches practical criticism and critical practice, lyric, and the history and literature of the 19th century.
What do we do with books, and what do we do when we read? These questions are particularly interesting in relation to the 19th century, when industrialisation and technological change made books and print much cheaper and more ubiquitous. Dr Sixsmith's research explores the use of books as objects as well as texts in this period. Her academic book-in-progress is a study of the biographies of 19th-century bibles. A trade book, When the Music Fades: Surrender, Power and the Soul Survivor Generation, is forthcoming with Canterbury Press.
‘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)
"‘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
‘“Injured Mutilated or Defaced”: How to Read a Bible in a Nineteenth-Century English Prison’, Book History, 24.2 (Fall 2021), 381-404
‘Christina Rossetti’s Apocalypse: Rhythm and Deferral in The Face of the Deep’, The Cambridge Quarterly, 49.4 (December 2020), 357-371
