William Strunk, Jr., a professor of English literature at Cornell University, penned ‘The Elements of Style’ in 1918 as a guide for his students in the proper use of grammar and composition. The book served as an invaluable resource for writers for decades and was revised in 1959 by author E.B. White. (The resulting manuscript, with White’s revisions, would become an even bigger sensation, selling over ten million copies.)
Presented here is the original manuscript Strunk published in 1918, the book that would go on to provide inspiration, counsel and guidance for generations of writers. Strunk’s simple, clear and occasionally humorous writing samples and grammatical rules have proved to be an invaluable tool for authors for over a hundred years.
Circa l’autore
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 Ph D 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.Altri ebook dello stesso autore / Editore
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