I am interested in masons -brick and mortar masons, not fraternal masons- as they occur in literature. I stumbled across a wonderful website "Books and bricks" which deals with this very topic. In navigating through this website, I have been unable to find some of the great bricklaying characters which I am sure populate the world of literature.  Plenty of carpenters.

Two noteworthy masons in literature are Alexander Solzenytsin's Ivan Denisovich and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.

One day in my life, it's cold as Siberian hell, and I'm laying brick or block, I pause and think of Ivan Denisovich; and just how easy this really is.