The Elements of Style
by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
Buy on AmazonThe Elements of Style is a writing style guide for American English, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage," ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused", and a list of 57 "words often misspelled". The first edition was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920. Thirty-five years later, the writer and editor E. B. White revised and expanded the Strunk & White style guide for publication by Macmillan Publishers in 1959, which was the edition of The Elements of Style that Time magazine recognized in 2011 as one of the hundred best and most influential non-fiction books in English since 1923.
Recommended by
"I read it first nearly 50 years ago and still turn to it as an ever reliable aid-to-navigation."
By the Book: David Mccullough · nytimes.com