Fascinating ... a trove of riveting facts.

It’s a bracing read. Heffer takes no linguistic prisoners. This is a useful, well-constructed and often absorbing book.

Simply English is much more readable than a reference book has a right to be ... basically Simply English is rather good.

Advice that will change for ever the way you use certain words.

Easy to use and terribly hard to put down ... Essential.

Great editor: great teacher of editors

Harry Evans is the journalist we all wanted to be. He could write, sub, design, re-write, think - everything short of standing on the streets and selling the paper himself. Essential English has for generations been the bible of any aspiring Harry Evans. It is as fresh today as it was when it was first published nearly thirty years ago

Welcome back to the standard and brilliant text on written English for journalism. Good writing is good writing, and Harold Evans is a good writer, when all around are letting standards slip. Essential English should be essential reading for all journalism students, and all journalists who seek to improve their writing

Eager, conscientious, affectionate… Endearingly old-fashioned in its family piety, protective partisanship and unembellished decency… A work that murmurs and sidles in a self-effacing tone… A likeable, informative and poignant book that Findlay is uniquely suited to have written

There is a tenderness with which [Findlay] cherishes even the most inconsequential events… Fitting tribute

Entertaining

Findlay’s welcome biography reveals him to be a fascinating character… Admirably and engagingly fulfils its brief

A revealing portrait of an extraordinary man

Findlay ably amplifies her portrait with family history and evocations of the Edwardian literary scene

Respectful and sympathetic

Compelling

A colourful treatment of a colourful life

Personal and affectionate tribute

Affectionate, familial tribute to this many-sided man.