Arthur Quiller-Couch the source of the popular writers' adage "murder your darlings". He is mentioned briefly in "The Well of Lost Plots" by Jasper Fforde as one of the few authors with a name beginning with the letter "Q". It is Quiller-Couch who originated the saying "kill your darlings": A collected edition of Q's fiction appeared as "Tales and Romances" (30 volumes, 1928–29). Arthur Quiller-Couch Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (; 21 November 186312 May 1944) was a Cornish writer who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication "The Oxford Book Of English
Robert Gittings in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". While still at school he published poems and thus encountered Christopher Fry, a lifelong friend. At the University of Cambridge, he was encouraged by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor of the "Oxford Book of English Verse", whose rooms in college were near his, and in 1931 he was awarded the Chancellor's gold medal for English verse. In 1933, Gittings was elected a research fellow of Jesus College and became a history supervisor in 1938. In 1940. he took a job with BBC Radio as a producer and writer, remaining with the Corporation twenty-three years.