Turned up work by English author (5)
I believe the answer is:
eliot
'author' is the definition.
(novelist George Eliot)
'turned up work by english' is the wordplay.
'turned up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'work' becomes 'toil' (toil is a kind of work).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation).
'toil' back-to-front is 'liot'.
'liot' after 'e' is 'ELIOT'.
(Other definitions for eliot that I've seen before include "Author of Adam Bede, d.1880" , "Middlemarch author" , "T S . . . . . wrote ''The Waste Land''" , "George - - (novelist)" , "Female novelist" .)