Amazon.com description: Product Description: A unique combination of textbook and reference guide, The Classics of Style is an ornate, yet practical guide to the art of English. From the work of some of America s greatest writers, they teach us the essential elements of our language. From the rudimentary basics to the spark of literary genius, The Classics of Style is the quintessential language stylebook, unequalled in content and quality. Beginning with Professor William Strunk s timeless masterpiece on writing and grammar fundamentals, this book is illuminated by the guidance and advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Frederic Taber Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe and Edward Sapir. In ornate succession, each author bestows their individual techniques and inspiration of their craft in this volume: the roots of their genius. In todays communication age, it is imperative to effectively utilize and organize words concisely and clearly. This book was designed to reach a broad array of professions. It provides design guidance, content development, usage grammar and spelling rules to professional novelists, editors, reporters and poets, and of course college and advanced secondary students in liberal arts classes. Illustrated and annotated with short biographies of these immanent contributors of our literary culture, this book serves to give us consistent guidance and direction. Please contact the publisher for the available Instructor's Manual to this title.