The Elements of Style

By William Strunk Jr

The Elements of Style is an American English writing style guide. It is one of the most influential and best-known prescriptive treatments of English grammar and usage in the United States. It originally detailed eight elementary rules of usage, ten elementary principles of composition, and "a few matters of form" as well as a list of commonly misused words and expressions. Updated editions of the paperback book are often required reading for American high school and college composition classes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flip
• Release date: Jul 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9782377873609

William Strunk Jr

William Strunk, Jr. (1869-1946) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the eldest of William and Ella Garretson Strunk's four children. Strunk excelled in school, eventually earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati and a PhD at Cornell University. He then attended the Sorbonne and the Collège de France from 1898-99 where he studied morphology and philology. Strunk began his academic career teaching mathematics at Rose Polytechnical Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana from 1890-91, then returned to Cornell and taught English there for 46 years. In 1922 he published English Metres, a study of poetic metrical form, and began writing he critical editions of various classical works. Strunk joined a literary group called the Manuscript Club which held Saturday night meetings to discuss writing and literature. There, Strunk met and became friends with a young aspiring writer, Elwyn Brooks ("E.B.") White. In 1918, Strunk published The Elements of Style, but originally only intended it to be used by his Cornell students, who nicknamed it "the little book." In 1935, Strunk and Edward A. Tenney revised the manuscript and re-published the guide for wider distribution as The Elements and Practice of Composition. Years later, after Strunk had passed away, E.B. White - now working at the New Yorker - praised the "little book" in his column, calling it a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English." As a result of the new attention White's praise generated for Strunk's manuscript, Macmillan and Company commissioned White to revise the 1935 edition for republication. The resulting book became an immediate hit. Since The Elements of Style (now credited to both Strunk and White) was originally republished in 1959, sales of the book - and subsequent editions - has exceeded ten million copies and the book is often referred to simply as "Strunk and White." William Strunk retired from Cornell in 1937 and in 1945 he suffered a mental breakdown, diagnosed as "senile psychosis." He died less than a year later at the Hudson River Psychiatric Institute in Poughkeepsie, New York.

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Reviews for The Elements of Style

[Davi Lima · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book! It is very practical and with good examples.

[mathewbridle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as blurb suggests.

[joel_overbeck · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books on writing fiction.

[emanate28 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like the concise points and don't understand what the controversy is about the book; his points make sense to me and seem valid, especially for student writers.

[caitlin.la.folle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Indispensable.

[math_foo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Is this a flawed book?Of course. The style of prose it advocates was already out of date when it was published. It presents the taste of its authors' as inviolable laws, leading to painful contortions in the written language of those who try to follow it.As the previous sentence indicates, even in matters of simple punctuation I do not agree with The Elements of Style.And yet much of the advice is still solid. Even if you disagree with Strunk and White, it is better to have consciously rejected a rule than to have never considered the matter. There is also a surprising playfulness with language that appears between dour pronunciations. This side of The Elements of style was unknown to me prior to reading it, seemingly having been missed by both its detractors and fanatics.