Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style,   ISBN:9781416590927

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Sylized is simply a good read! Whether or not you're a fan of Strunk and White's Elements of Style, you're sure to enjoy Mark Garvey's Stylized. His extensive research, interviews with authors, letters of Strunk, White, and others provide highly entertaining insight into the publishing and continued success of Elements of Style, the core values it espouses, as well as a look at the personalities of the two genetlemen responsible for the book. The letters alone are reason enough to read this book; the rest is icing on the cake. It's a well-written, entertaining, and smart book that would appeal to anyone who enjoys reading and/or writing.

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Mark Garvey's well-researched "Stylized" is billed as "a slightly obsessive history of Strunk & White's 'The Elements of Style.'" Garvey is an unabashed fan who maintains that "ounce for ounce, this work has done more to establish an American ideal of good prose style than any other book or any teacher, living or dead." Garvey not only provides the reader with a history of "The Elements of Style" in all of its incarnations, but he also gives us a glimpse into the lives and personalities of its authors, William Strunk, Jr. and Elwyn Brooks White. Garvey likens these two men to Rodgers and Hammerstein, the Wright Brothers, and Lennon-McCartney; to him, they are the rock stars of fine writing.

Garvey entertainingly, humorously, and in great detail, traces "The Elements of Style" back to its inception. The first edition was self-published by Strunk, a professor of English at Cornell, in 1918. Strunk hoped that this handbook would ground his pupils in the fundamentals of English composition. At forty-three pages, it was intended as a handy manual, covering "the basics of clear and clean writing [with] tips on usage, composition, word choice, [and] spelling." The price was twenty-five cents and one of its purchasers was Strunk's student, E. B. White. At that time, White was a Cornell undergraduate, and he probably had no idea that he would someday become a renowned essayist, children's book author, and "the voice of the New Yorker magazine."

It was not until 1957 that White revisited "The Elements of Style," and wrote a New Yorker article about Strunk and his philosophy. This led to a collaboration between the Macmillan Publishing Company and E. B. White, who eventually updated Strunk's text. In the revised edition, published in 1959, White included a foreword, an introduction, and a final chapter, "An Approach to Style." Since that time, "The Elements of Style" has been updated repeatedly (most recently in 1999) and is still in print. However, is it still needed today, when most of us communicate almost exclusively via cell phone, email, text messages, and blogs? There are indeed those who proclaim that Strunk & White's ideas are outdated, irrelevant, or just plain wrongheaded--that their "rules" no longer apply in this postmodern era.

However, Garvey and other writers, some of whom speak out in "Stylized," believe that there are certain standards that never go out of date, "that careful, clear thinking and writing can occasionally touch truth; [that there is] depth in simplicity and beauty in plainness...." Those who admire Strunk and White will enjoy reading about their personal lives, professional accomplishments, and the delight that they took in the English language, good literature, and lucid writing. As long as we put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, there will be a treasured place for this little book in our personal libraries. As White's editor at Macmillan, J. G. Case once said, "Sloppy usage drives out meaning" and leads to "muddle, waste, frustration, [and] murk." The purpose of writing, he goes on to say, is "to transmit meaning, to enlighten and clarify...." This is as true today as it ever was.

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THis is an excellent book. Not only is Mr. Garvey very well versed in the Elements of Style, but his author interviews are not to be missed - including one with the late Frank McCourt, one of my favorite authors. Highly recommended!