CONTAINS:
The Long Weekend: A Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939
The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose
With an introduction by Jane Aiken Hodge

From the perspective of the early 1940s, Robert Graves and his co-author of The Long Weekend, the journalist and historian Alan Hodge surveyed the darkening interwar years from 1918 to 1939 with wit, insight and a passionate curiosity about the idiosyncrasies that make up the spirit of an age. Nothing escaped their eye for the telling detail: the price of milk and suburban house names; hairstyles and left-wing theatre, dance crazes, the popularity of boxing, the spread of Woolworth's stores... Personalities of the time are deftly captured, the course of politics and international affairs lucidly traced towards the crises of the late 1930s. In a ground-breaking work of social history as colourful and engaging as a novel, Graves and Hodge never lose sight of the larger significance of the changes they record in a world moving towards the outbreak of war.

The Reader Over Your Shoulder, a critical history of and handbook to style in English prose, develops the authors' social analysis in its focus on language. In its emphasis on the importance of clarity and accuracy in communication, it remains an invaluable guide for writers and readers.

Contents:
Introduction ix

The Long Weekend: A Social History of Great Britain 1918•1939
Authors’ Note 2
1 Armistice, 1918 3
2 Revolution Averted, 1919 9
3 Women 23
4 Reading Matter 34
5 Post-War Politics 45
6 Various Conquests 59
7 Sex 73
8 Amusements 84
9 Screen and Stage 100
10 Revolution Again Averted, 1926 114
11 Domestic Life 131
12 Art, Literature, and Religion 147
13 Education and Ethics 162
14 Sport and Controversy 175
15 The Depression, 1930 192
16 Pacificism, Nudism, Hiking 207
17 The Days of the Loch Ness Monster 220
18 Recovery, 1935 239
19 The Days of Non-Intervention 253
20 ‘The Deepening Twilight of Barbarism’ 265
21 Three Kings in One Year 280
22 Keeping Fit and Doing the Lambeth Walk 296
22 Social Consciences 308
24 ‘Markets Close Firmer’ 320
25 Still at Peace 331
26 Rain Stops Play, 1939 344

The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose
Part I: The Reader Over Your Shoulder
1 The Peculiar Qualities of English 361
2 The Present Confusion of English Prose 373
3 Where is Good English to be Found? 384
4 The Use and Abuse of Official English 396
5 The Beginnings of English Prose 411
6 The Ornate and Plain Styles 427
7 Classical Prose 438
8 Romantic Prose 452
9 Recent Prose 465
10 The Principles of Clear Statement•I 480
11 The Principles of Clear Statement•II 497
12 The Principles of Clear Statement•III 514
13 The Graces of Prose 537

Part II: Examinations and Fair Copies
Explanation 561
Sir Norman Angell 566
Irving Babbitt 572
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley 578
Clive Bell 583
Viscount Castlerosse (now the Earl of Kenmare) 586
Bishop of Chichester 590
G.D.H. Cole 597
Marquess of Crewe 603
Dr. Hugh Dalton, M.P. 608
Daphne du Maurier 612
Sir Arthur Eddington 614
T.S. Eliot 623
Lord Esher 629
Admiral C.J. Eyres 634
Negley Farson 637
Major-General J.F.C. Fuller 644
Major-General Sir Charles Gwynn 648
Viscount Halifax 654
Cicely Hamilton 659
‘Ian Hay’ 662
Ernest Hemingway 670
Aldous Huxley 672
Dr. Julian Huxley 677
Paul Irwin 682
Sir James Jeans 689
Professor C.E.M. Joad 693
Senator Hiram Johnson 696
Professor J.M. Keynes (now Lord Keynes) 702
Commander Stephen King-Hall 711
Dr. F.R. Leavis 715
Cecil Day Lewis 721
Desmond MacCarthy 728
Brigadier-General J.H. Morgan, K.C. 730
J. Middleton Murry 734
Sir Cyril Norwood 738
‘Observator’ 743
An Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary 745
Eric Partridge 752
‘Peterborough’ 757
Ezra Pound 762
J.B. Priestley 767
D.N. Pritt, K.C., M.P. 771
Herbert Read 775
I.A. Richards 777
Bertrand Russell 785
Viscount Samuel 790
George Bernard Shaw 794
Stephen Spender 799
J.W.N. Sullivan 804
Helen Waddell 807
Sir Hugh Walpole 813
H.G. Wells 818
Professor A.N. Whitehead 822
Sir Leonard Woolley 828

Index to The Long Weekend 831