His Century Handbook of Writing, written with Easley S. Jones and first published in 1918, was an influential manual for English composition teachers.
Greever taught in the English Department at the University of Southern California, along with Frank C. Baxter,[1] and was acquainted with poet Robert Frost, for whom he tried, without success, to get a residency at USC in 1933.
First, it was meant for classroom use, whereas Woolley was more intended for the teacher as a guide to correcting "themes", as weekly composition essays were called.
The latter contained "short literary excerpts--interesting, well chosen, and skillfully arranged--to serve as models for students (approximately college freshmen) in their writing",[8] and was recommended for in-class use: "This class reading is not only of value in itself; it forces the student to cope with new words, gives him examples of good style, and not infrequently introduces new ideas.
Charles I. Patterson, however, argued in 1951, in an article published in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, that only the 1797 review of The Monk was written by Coleridge.