Not a chatty compendium of grammatical errors such as Strictly Speaking but an advanced collegiate English-major bedrock guide to English grammar structure and rules.
{Gaudere has struck twice. I never misspell “grammar” and I’ve managed to mistype it as “grammer” THREE times here now, including in this very #@ sentence}
One with historical background to the rules and structural elements would be good. Please recommend your favorites, thanks!
I teach at a university.
A college-level book devoted to the fundamentals of grammatical prose should not be a textbook, but should simply be a pithy guide. I recommend The Elements of Grammar (Shertzer) and The Elements of Style (Strunk and White), both published by Macmillan/Collier.
Elements of Style is of course the all-time classic. Also see Fowler; that’s pretty good, on the opposite end of the length scale from S&W. A more recent textbook I like is the Random House Handbook edited by Crewes. (Crews?)
Strunk and White has never steered me wrong. Absorb its lessons and become a better writer.
If you really mean what you said in the original post, the best by far is Quirk and Greenbaum’s A Concise Grammar of Contemporary English.
Little historical background, but a very detailed listing of the rules.
Thanks!