"Be in no doubt: the beer was drunk but the man drank the beer." A master English stylist shows how it's done. Simon Heffer's incisive and amusingly despairing emails to colleagues at thethe Daily Telegraph about grammatical mistakes and stylistic slips have found their way on to the internet and have attracted a growing band of ardent fans over recent years. Now he makes an impassioned case for an end to the sloppiness that has become a hallmark of everyday speech and writing, and shows how accuracy and clarity are within the grasp of anyone who is prepared to take the time to master a few simple rules. If you wince when you see "different than" in print, or are offended by people who think that "infer" and "imply" mean the same thing, then this book will provide reassurance that you are not alone. If you have a suspicion that it is wrong to say "the car collided with the tree" but are not quite sure why, then it will set you straight. And if you believe that precise and elegant English really does matter, then it will prove required reading.

Strictly English: The Correct Way to Write . . . and Why It Matters

Humor & Entertainment

Heffer, Simon

Humor

Windmill Books

A master stylist wages war on bad English In Strictly English, Simon Heffer explained how to write and speak our language well. Here he offers an entertaining and supremely useful A–Z guide to frequent errors, common misunderstandings, and stylistic howlers. What is the difference between amend and emend, between imply and infer, and between uninterested and disinterested? When should one put owing to rather than due to? Why should the temptation to write actually, basically, or at this moment in time always be strenuously resisted? How does one use an apostrophe correctly, ensure that one understands what alibi really means, and avoid the perils of the double negative? With articles on everything from punctuation to tabloid English to adverbs and adjectives, Simply English is the essential companion for anyone who cares about the language and wants to use it correctly.

Simply English: An A-Z of Avoidable Errors

Reference

Dictionaries & Thesauruses

High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain

In 1840, Britain was racked by poverty, unrest and the fear of revolution. By 1880 it was a confident, prosperous nation, transformed not just by industrialization but by new attitudes to politics, science, education, women and the working class. This history explores the role of politicians such as Peel and Gladstone, and reformers such as Millicent Garret Fawcett, Octavia Hill and William Booth in this transformation, creating a panoramic view of the extraordinary era that gave birth to modern Britain.

History

Europe

'A riveting account of the pre-First World War years . . . The Age of Decadence is an enormously impressive and enjoyable read.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times'A magnificent account of a less than magnificent epoch.' Jonathan Meades, Literary Review The folk-memory of Britain in the years before the Great War is of a powerful, contented, orderly and thriving country. She commanded a vast empire. She bestrode international commerce. Her citizens were living longer, profiting from civil liberties their grandparents only dreamt of, and enjoying an expanding range of comforts and pastimes. The mood of pride and self-confidence is familiar from Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches, newsreels of George V's coronation and the London's great Edwardian palaces.Yet things were very different below the surface. In The Age of Decadence Simon Heffer exposes the contradictions of late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. He explains how, despite the nation's massive power, a mismanaged war against the Boers in South Africa created profound doubts about her imperial destiny. He shows how attempts to secure vital social reforms prompted the twentieth century's gravest constitutional crisis and coincided with the worst industrial unrest in British history. He describes how politicians who conceded the vote to millions more men disregarded women so utterly that female suffragists' public protest bordered on terrorism. He depicts a ruling class that fell prey to degeneracy and scandal. He analyses a national psyche that embraced the motor-car, the sensationalist press and the science fiction of H. G. Wells, but also the Arts and Crafts of William Morris and the nostalgia of A. E. Housman. And he concludes with the crisis that in the summer of 1914 threatened the existence of the United Kingdom - a looming civil war in Ireland.He lights up the era through vivid pen-portraits of the great men and women of the day - including Gladstone, Parnell, Asquith and Churchill, but also Mrs Pankhurst, Beatrice Webb, Baden-Powell, Wilde and Shaw - creating a richly detailed panorama of a great power that, through both accident and arrogance, was forced to face potentially fatal challenges.'A devastating critique of prewar Britain . . . disturbingly relevant to the world in which we live.' Gerard DeGroot, The Times'You won't put it down . . . A really riveting read.' Rana Mitter, BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking

Age Of Decadence

A biography of the Victorian era Scottish author and philosopher, whose reputation declined after he became one of Hitler's favorite authors

Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

TRAFALGAR SQUARE +

How King Edward Saved the Monarchy and made Britain the Democracy it is today.  This book is a description of the way in which a man, born to be head of state in what he and his contemporaries defined as a  constitutional monarchy, perceived and discharged his political duties. Above all it seeks to discover what results King Edward  had on politics of the time and on the future of the British constitution.

Power and Place: the Political Consequences of King Edward VII

London Windenfield & Nicolson c1998

Vaughan Williams

A tweedy purveyor of folklore; too many larks ascending and too much Linden Lea: no composer's work has ever been more cruelly stereotyped than that of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The truth could hardly have been more different: that folksy feel masked the highest sophistication, that countrified air the most audacious experimentation. If, unlike his Germanizing contemporary Elgar, Vaughan Williams did indeed open the way to a distinctively English Music, his was an Englishness which owed nothing to narrow-mindedness or lack of artistic enterprise.   Fifty years after his death in 1958, Vaughan Williams' reputation is greater than ever before and there is a resurgence of interest in his music. Re-issued to coincide with this anniversary, Simon Heffer's perceptive book lends weight to the increasingly compelling case for Vaughan Williams' recognition as the most important English composer of the twentieth century.   'A vivid and appealing picture of an irresistibly likeable figure ... I enjoyed this little book enormously.' Spectator  'An affectionate, accurate and shrewd account of Vaughan Williams' life ... the author's astute commentary on it betokens close and knowledgeable acquaintance.' Sunday Telegraph

Arts & Photography

Music

FABER

Like the Roman

Leaders & Notable People

Faber Finds

'A brilliant and scholarly biography of an extraordinary figure.' Lord Blake, Country Life'A fresh, engaging, conscientious account of one of the great Victorians.' Michael Foot, London Review of Books'A thorough and convincing account of 'the sage''. Peter Ackroyd, Times Thomas Carlyle was the most influential man of letters of his day, and his vivid account of the French Revolution remains one of the classic histories. Even George Eliot, no admirer, wrote: 'It is an idle question to ask whether his books will be read a century hence; if they were all burnt as the grandest of Suttes on his funeral pyre, it would only be like cutting down an oak after its acorns have sown a forest.'Simon Heffer draws upon previously unavailable papers to reassess a magnificent, defiant and often lonely individualist whose idiosyncratic and passionate books brought him universal fame.

Moral Desperado

Faber and Faber

1901 was a turning point in British history - the moment when the inevitability of the democratic state was realized and a new king came to the throne. Drawing on the royal archives, this book presents an intimate portrait of the relations between the new King, his courtiers and his ministers.

Power and Place the Political Consequences (Phoenix Giants)

orion#

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