{"product_id":"the-reader-over-your-shoulder-isbn-9781609807337","title":"The Reader Over Your Shoulder","description":"In late October 1939, Robert Graves wrote to Alan Hodge: “I have begun a new book, about English.” Graves and Hodge had recently completed a social history of the between-wars period called \u003ci\u003eThe Long Week-End\u003c\/i\u003e. Now they embarked on this new project, “a handbook for writers of English Prose,” to be called \u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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 \u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder \u003c\/i\u003eas 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.\"The best book on writing ever published.\" \u003cb\u003e—Patricia T. O'Conner, from the introduction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A never-ending pragmatic pleasure.\" \u003cb\u003e—Ralph Nader\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder \u003c\/i\u003eis subtitled \u003ci\u003eA Handbook for Writers of English Prose\u003c\/i\u003e, 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 \u003ci\u003ePractical Criticism\u003c\/i\u003e, 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, \u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder \u003c\/i\u003ecould 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.\" \u003cb\u003e—Denis Donoghue in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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 \u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\" \u003cb\u003e—Mark Halpern in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOne of the English language’s greatest defenders,\u003cb\u003e Robert Graves \u003c\/b\u003e(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, \u003ci\u003eGoodbye to All That\u003c\/i\u003e—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 \u003ci\u003eI, Claudius\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGoodbye to All That\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe White Goddess\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCollected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMilton’s Wife\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThey Hanged My Saintly Billy\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Golden Fleece\u003c\/i\u003e; with Alan Hodge: \u003ci\u003eThe Long Week-End \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder\u003c\/i\u003e; and for children: \u003ci\u003eAnn at Highwood Hall\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Hebrew Myths\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Siege and Fall of Troy\u003c\/i\u003e.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlan Hodge \u003c\/b\u003e(1915–1979) was a historian and editor. In addition to \u003ci\u003eThe Reader Over Your Shoulder\u003c\/i\u003e, he collaborated with Graves on \u003ci\u003eThe Long Week-End\u003c\/i\u003e, a social history of Britain during the First and Second World War and, together with Graves and Norman Cameron, on \u003ci\u003eWork in Hand\u003c\/i\u003e, a poetry collection. Like Graves, Hodge was in Spain when the Spanish Civil War erupted, and in Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePatricia T. O'Conner\u003c\/b\u003e, a former staff editor at \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e, is the author of five books on language, most recently \u003ci\u003eOrigins of the Specious\u003c\/i\u003e, written with her husband, Stewart Kellerman. Her first book, \u003ci\u003eWoe Is I\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.","brand":"Seven Stories Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303924814053,"sku":"NP9781609807337","price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781609807337.jpg?v=1767741166","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-reader-over-your-shoulder-isbn-9781609807337","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}