The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose

"The best book on writing ever published" (Patricia T. O'Conner, author of Woe Is I) .

When Robert Graves and Alan Hodge decided to collaborate on this manual for writers, the world was in total upheaval. Graves had fled Majorca three years earlier at the start of the Spanish Civil War, and as they labored over their new project, they witnessed the fall of France and the evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk. Soon the horror of World War II would reach British soil as well, as the Luftwaffe began bombing London in an effort to destroy the resolve of the English people.

Graves and Hodge believed that at a time when their whole world was falling apart, the survival of English prose sentences - of writing that was clear, concise, and intelligible - had become paramount if hope were going to outlive 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. Successful communication could mean the difference between war and peace, life and death, and they were determined to contribute to its survival. The importance of good writing continues today, as obfuscation, propaganda, manipulative language, and sloppy standards are all too common - and this classic guide is just as useful and important as ever.

Note: This edition restores the full, original 1943 text.

"To see what really expert mavens can do in applying their rule-based expertise to clearing up bad prose, get hold of a copy ofThe Reader Over Your Shoulder." - The Atlantic Read more Continue reading Read less REVIEW
"The best book on writing ever published." - Patricia T. O'Conner, from the introduction

"A never-ending pragmatic pleasure." - Ralph Nader

"The Reader Over Your Shoulder is subtitled A Handbook for Writers of English Prose, but it is also an inspiration for readers. I don't know any other book in which expository prose is read so seriously, carefully, helpfully. For this reason, the book is just as important as I. A. Richard's Practical Criticism, in which the attempts of Cambridge undergraduate students of English Literature reading certain passages of English verse were produced and examined. That book transformed the teaching of literature in the universities by showing that the governing assumptions about reading and interpretation were mostly wrong. If our educational systems were sound, The Reader Over Your Shoulder could have the same effect on the teaching of expository writing by showing what the reading of such prose entails. The questions Graves and Hodge ask, the objections they raise to the particular sentences exhibited, are never pedantic; they arise from a decision to take the prose seriously." - Denis Donoghue in The New York Times

"To see what really expert mavens can do in applying their rule-based expertise to clearing up bad prose, get hold of a copy of The Reader Over Your Shoulder, by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge--not the modern paperback reprint, with its ruinous cuts, but the original 1943 edition, published by Macmillan [and restored in 2018 by Seven Stories Press]. It is one of the three or four books on usage that deserve a place on the same shelf with Fowler." - Mark Halpern in The Atlantic --This text refers to an alternate kindleedition edition. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
One of the English language's greatest defenders, Robert Graves (1895-1985) was a preeminent English poet, novelist, memoirist, critic, translator, children's book author, and scholar of classical mythology. He served and was injured as an infantry officer in France during World War I - an experience recounted in his 1929 autobiography, Goodbye to All That - and later became the first professor of English literature at the University of Cairo. Graves is best remembered today for his acclaimed historical novels, his books of mythology, and the present volume on English. His many acclaimed works include I, Claudius, Goodbye to All That, The White Goddess, Collected Poems, Milton's Wife, They Hanged My Saintly Billy, and The Golden Fleece; with Alan Hodge: The Long Week-End and The Reader Over Your Shoulder; and for children: Ann at Highwood Hall, The Hebrew Myths, and The Siege and Fall of Troy.

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 atThe New York Times Book Review, is the author of five books on language, most recentlyOrigins 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. --This text refers to an alternate kindleedition edition. Read more Continue reading Read less