Plain Style: A Guide to Written English

is an amusing and instructive guide to written English by the late Christopher Lasch, author of , , and many other memorable works of American history and social criticism. Written for the benefit of the students at the Universityof Rochester, where Lasch taught from 1970 until his death in 1994, it quickly established itself in typescript as a local classic—a lively, witty, and historically minded alternative to the famous volume by William Strunk and E. B. White, . Now available for the first time in published form, is fundamentally a clear, readable, practical guide to the timeless principles of effective composition. At the same time, however, in ways that Stewart Weaver explains in his critical introduction, it is a distinctive and revealing addition to the published work of an eminent American thinker. No mere primer, is an essay in cultural criticism, a political treatise even, by one for whom directness, clarity, and honesty of expression were essential to the living spirit of democracy. As the teachers and students who have for years benefited from its succinct wisdom will testify, is an indispensable guide to writing and, indeed, Christopher Lasch's least-expected but perhaps most serviceable work.