Arthur Quiller-Couch

3 books

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On the Art of Reading non-fiction
Q talks to you like a friendly Cambridge don who'd rather pour you sherry than set you an exam, arguing that children should meet literature as pleasure, not homework, and that the Bible reads beautifully as plain English prose. Lectures from 1916, so expect some leisurely digressions, but genial ones.
On the Art of Writing non-fiction
These are Quiller-Couch's Cambridge lectures, so you get a professor teasing his students in person, skewering foggy official jargon and coining the advice to murder your darlings. The Edwardian courtliness takes some patience, but if you write at all, his crankiness about lazy prose sticks with you.
The Splendid Spur
Jack Marvel rides through the Civil War carrying dispatches for the King, with a sword fight or an escape in nearly every chapter. Quiller-Couch is doing Stevenson, openly and well; it reads fast, the way it was meant to.

3 books

sort

On the Art of Reading non-fiction
Q talks to you like a friendly Cambridge don who'd rather pour you sherry than set you an exam, arguing that children should meet literature as pleasure, not homework, and that the Bible reads beautifully as plain English prose. Lectures from 1916, so expect some leisurely digressions, but genial ones.
On the Art of Writing non-fiction
These are Quiller-Couch's Cambridge lectures, so you get a professor teasing his students in person, skewering foggy official jargon and coining the advice to murder your darlings. The Edwardian courtliness takes some patience, but if you write at all, his crankiness about lazy prose sticks with you.
The Splendid Spur
Jack Marvel rides through the Civil War carrying dispatches for the King, with a sword fight or an escape in nearly every chapter. Quiller-Couch is doing Stevenson, openly and well; it reads fast, the way it was meant to.