The Elements of Style

Strunk, Jr., William

Published by Privately Printed, Ithaca, NY, 1919

About this Item

The 1919 privately printed edition; the second of two privately published editions; preceding the publication of the first trade edition. Near Fine with light rubbing and toning to wraps, former owner name and street address to title page of a Cornell student living at the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house in Ithaca, corner crease to final leaf and rear cover. Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. wrote The Elements of Style in 1918 and privately published it in 1919, for use at the university. In 1957 the style guide reached the attention of E.B. White at The New Yorker. White had studied writing at Cornell under Strunk in 1919 but had since forgotten "the little book" that he described as a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English". Weeks later, White wrote about Strunk's devotion to lucid English prose in his column. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959, and the work then became known as Strunk & White, which in 2011, Time named as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. Seller Inventory # 140943977

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Elements of Style

Publisher: Privately Printed, Ithaca, NY

Publication Date: 1919

Condition: Near Fine