Ward Farnsworth, Dean of the University of Texas School of Law, writes on a wide range of topics. His series on Classical English is special in its quantity and range of examples. The series consists of:

• Classical English Rhetoric
• Classical English Metaphor
• Classical English Style
• Classical English Argument (forthcoming)

From Preface of his Classical English Style:

Abraham Lincoln wrote more beautifully and memorably than anyone in public life does now. So did Winston Churchill; so did Edmund Burke, so did many others, none of whom sound quite alike but all of whom achieved an eloquence that seems foreign to our times. What did they know that we don’t? It might seem strange to seek instruction form writers who lived so long ago. It certainly would sound odd to imitate their styles directly. But writers of lasting stature still make the best teachers. They understood principles of style that are powerful and enduring, even if the principles have to be adapted to our era, or to any other, before they become useful. That is the premise of this book, at any rate. It is a set of lessons on style drawn from writers whose words have stood the test of time.

This book is the third in a series. The first, Classical English Rhetoric, showed how rhetorical figures – ancient patterns for the arrangement of words – have been used to great effect in English oratory and prose. The second, Classical English Metaphor, did the same for figurative comparisons. This one takes a similar approach to more basic questions of style: the selection of words, the arrangement of sentences, the creation of a cadence. It shows how masters of the language have made those choices, and how the choices have put life into their writing and their speech;

. . . .

Typical books about style contain a lot of precepts and a few illustrations of how the concepts work. The ratio in this book is reversed, it depends more on illustrations and supplies them generously.