Fifty Years of The Elements of Style

Fifty years after first making its mark as the definitive guide to writing style and usage, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is now available in an anniversary edition from Longman Publishers, an imprint of Pearson.

The best-known and best-selling book about writing ever published, more than 10 million copies of The Elements of Style have been sold since its first publication in 1959. The original Boston Globe review, quoted in the front of the commemorative edition, still holds true today: "No book in shorter space, with fewer words, will help any writer more than this persistent little volume."

In 1957, E.B. White rediscovered the brief guide to clear English writing style that had been self-published by William Strunk, Jr., a favorite writing teacher during White's undergraduate years at Cornell University. White, an acclaimed editorialist and essayist at the New Yorker and the author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, expressed his admiration in a New Yorker article. When an editor at Macmillan persuaded White to revise and expand Professor Strunk's 43-page book, that essay served as its introduction, and the book often known as "Strunk and White" was born. White later revised the book twice, in 1972 and 1979, and a fourth edition appeared in 2000 with a foreword by White's stepson, writer Roger Angell.

The Elements of Style 50th anniversary edition is a black leather-bound, gold-embossed reprint of the fourth edition. New commemorative material includes a publisher's note outlining the book's publishing history, and "fifty years of acclaim" from leading literary figures past and present, including Dorothy Parker, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jim Lehrer, Ann Patchett, Richard Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dan Rather, Jonathan Lethem, Julia Alvarez, Roy Blount, Jr., Thomas Mallon and David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.

The Elements of Style has influenced generations of writers, and indeed may be more relevant than ever in today's world of blogs, wikis and other online communication and expression. As E.B. White said in his introduction: "... it still seems to maintain its original poise, standing in a drafty time, erect, resolute and assured."

The official 50th anniversary of The Elements of Style is April 16, 2009, and an event to celebrate the occasion will be held in New York City with a panel of writers and journalists discussing the power of the "little book," featuring acclaimed writers Roger Rosenblatt, Roy Blount Jr. and Barbara Wallraff, columnist for The Atlantic. In addition, the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University, keepers of the papers of E.B. White, will host an exhibit in Olin Library to coincide with the anniversary. Materials include White's typewriter, handwritten notes, photographs and more.

"Not until I started teaching writing and I reread The Elements of Style did I realize that most everything I would be teaching young writers, and everything I would be learning myself as a writer, was contained between the covers of this slim, elegant, wise little book," said Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garc`Girls Lost their Accents and In the Time of Butterflies.

"The Elements of Style never seems to go out of date," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. "Its counsel is sound and funny, wise and unpretentious. And while its precepts are a foundation of direct communication, Strunk and White do not insist on a way of writing beyond clear expression. The rest is up to the imagination, the intelligence within."