Farnsworth's Classical English Metaphor

Make your writing and speech shine like the sun!

Here’s the most entertaining and instructive book about enlivening and clarifying communication by comparing one thing to another. Ward Farnsworth provides a wide-ranging, practical, tour of metaphors, arranged by theme. He shows how the best writers have put figurative comparisons to distinctive use—for the sake of caricature, to make an abstract idea visible, to make a complicated idea simple. Using hundreds of examples, Farnsworth demonstrates all the different stylistic ways that points can be unforgettably made. There are quotations from novelists, playwrights, philosophers, and orators—along with commentary on how and why they work to bring power to words both in person and and on paper. Writers and speakers, this book will make you a star. 

Praise for Farnsworth's Classical English Metaphor

“If you seek edification about the craft of writing, rarely has instruction been administered so delightfully.” —George F. Will, syndicated columnist

“A book to linger in, like an imaginatively interactive museum.” —Patrick Kurp, Anecdotal Evidence “Ward Farnsworth is a witty commentator...It's a book to dip in and savor.” —Jan Gardner, The Boston Globe

“Impressively well written, deftly organized, superbly presented, a brilliant informational treatise...Very highly recommended for both community and academic libraries.” —Willis Buhle, Midwest Book Review

“More than analysis, more than reference, this work is astoundingly rich and dense--an education in itself, and highly enjoyable.” —Mark Helprin, author of Winter's Tale

“Understand metaphor, understand the world, understand yourself...I could quote to you for the rest of the afternoon without exhausting the richness and sophistication of Mr. Farnsworth's admirable collection...The more we understand and make use of the possibilities of metaphor, the more profound understanding we will achieve.” —John E. McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun

“This handsome book…[is structured as] a scholarly anatomy of metaphors, [but] he recognizes that most people will find it a grab-bag of memorable quotations, an ideal browsing book for the nightstand.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“A superb job. Figuratively speaking, this is the best book that can be found.” —Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner's Modern English Usage

“I want this book to be beside my bed for years to come, a treasure-house of the liquid magic of words.” —Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman

“A feat of elegant demystification...Farnsworth is able to focus on the finite material of metaphorical referents...a brilliant strategy, both in its utility for writers and the inherent insight Farnsworth’s divisions suggest about metaphors.” —Jonathan Russell Clark, The Millions

“Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor promises and delivers a gallery of metaphor-masterworks...It is one of those books that inspires a reviewer to sing the delights of dipping in at random or of setting by a bedside for insomniac diversion...But there is another, less precious upshot to the book’s mosaic of metaphors: it gives emphasis not to the genius of individual authors, but to the potential of the English language.” —Essays & Criticism