So what if Jane Austen was a poor speller and a bad grammarian? She had the sense and sensibility to get a good editor.
New research shows Jane Austen was a poor speller and erratic grammarian who got a big helping hand from her editor. Her brother Henry said that “everything came finished from her pen.”
Rubbish.
According to the Associated Press, Oxford University English professor Kathryn Sutherland studied 1,100 handwritten pages of unpublished work from the author of incisive social comedies such as “Pride and Prejudice.”
“In reading the manuscripts, it quickly becomes clear that this delicate precision is missing,” Sutherland said.
She said the papers show “blots, crossings out, messiness,” and a writer who “broke most of the rules for writing good English.”
For the full story, visit
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11953579
Here is my advice for business book writers. Before you send your manuscript off, it might pay to have an editor take a look at it. Typically an editor might charge $1,000 to review and critique your book draft. Might make good sense and sensibility to do so.