The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose
640The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose
640Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
The world was in total upheaval. Graves had already fled Majorca three years earlier at the start of the Spanish Civil War. As they labored over their new writing project, Graves and Hodge witnessed the fall of France and the evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk. In early September 1940 began the bombing of London by the German Luftwaffe, a concentrated effort to destroy the resolve of the English people. Graves’s and Hodge’s idea was simple enough: at a time when their whole world was falling apart, the survival of English prose sentences, of writing that was clear, concise, intelligible, had become paramount if hope were going to survive the onslaught. They came up with forty-one principles for writing, the majority devoted to clarity, the remainder to grace of expression. They studied the prose of a wide range of noted authors and leaders, finding much room for improvement. Quoting grammarian and bestselling author Patricia T. O’Conner from her new introduction, “With a new war to be won, the kingdom couldn’t afford careless, sloppy English. Good communication was critical.”
The book they would write would turn out to be one of the most erudite, and at the same time one of the most spontaneous and inspired, ever to take on the challenge of writing well. O’Conner in her introduction describes The Reader Over Your Shoulder as nothing less than “the best book on writing ever published.” The present edition restores, for the first time in three-quarters of a century, the original, 1943, text, which in subsequent printings and editions had been shortened by over 150 pages, including much of the heart of the book.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781609807337 |
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Publisher: | Seven Stories Press |
Publication date: | 01/09/2018 |
Edition description: | Reprint |
Pages: | 640 |
Sales rank: | 1,153,289 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.40(d) |
About the Author
Alan Hodge (1915–1979) was a historian and editor. In addition to The Reader Over Your Shoulder, he collaborated with Graves on The Long Week-End, a social history of Britain during the First and Second World War and, together with Graves and Norman Cameron, on Work in Hand, a poetry collection. Like Graves, Hodge was in Spain when the Spanish Civil War erupted, and in Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland.
Patricia T. O'Conner, a former staff editor at The New York Times Book Review, is the author of five books on language, most recently Origins of the Specious, written with her husband, Stewart Kellerman. Her first book, Woe Is I, has half a million copies in print and will soon appear in a fourth edition. She and Mr. Kellerman blog about the English language at http://www.grammarphobia.com.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction Patricia T. O'Conner xi
Part I The Reader Over Your Shoulder
1 The Peculiar Qualities of English 3
2 The Present Confusion of English Prose 17
3 Where Is Good English to Be Found? 30
4 The Use and Abuse of Official English 45
5 The Beginnings of English Prose 65
6 The Ornate and Plain Styles 85
7 Classical Prose 99
8 Romantic Prose 116
9 Recent Prose 133
10 The Principles of Clear Statement-I 152
11 The Principles of Clear Statement-II 175
12 The Principles of Clear Statement-III 199
13 The Graces of Prose 231
Part II Examinations and Fair Copies
Sir Norman Angell 271
Irving Babbitt 279
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley 287
Clive Bell 293
Viscount Castlerosse (later the Earl of Kenmare) 298
Bishop of Chichester 302
G. D. H. Cole 311
Marquess of Crewe 319
Dr. Hugh Dalton, M.P. 326
Daphne Du Maurier 330
Sir Arthur Eddington 334
T. S. Eliot 344
Lord Esher 352
Admiral C.J. Eyres 359
Negley Farson 363
Major-Gen. J. F. C. Fuller 372
Major-Gen. Sir Charles Gwynn 378
Viscount Halifax 384
Cicely Hamilton 391
'Ian Hay' 395
Ernest Hemingway 406
Aldous Huxley 409
Prof. Julian Huxley 415
Paul Irwin 422
Sir James Jeans 430
Prof. C. E. M. Joad 436
Senator Hiram Johnson 441
J. M. Keynes (later Lord Keynes) 448
Com. Stephen King-Hall 459
Dr. F. R. Leavis 465
Cecil Day Lewis 472
Desmond MacCarthy 481
Brig.-Gen. J. H. Morgan, K.C. 485
J. Middleton Murry 489
Sir Cyril Norwood 494
'Observator' 501
An Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary 504
Eric Partridge 512
'Peterborough' 519
Ezra Pound 525
J. B. Priestley 532
D. N. Pritt, K.C, M.P. 537
Herbert Read 542
I. A. Richards 546
Bertrand Russell 555
Viscount Samuel 562
George Bernard Shaw 567
Stephen Spender 573
J. W. N. Sullivan 580
Helen Waddell 584
Sir Hugh Walpole 593
H. G. Wells 599
Prof. A. N. Whitehead 604
Sir Leonard Woolley 611