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
Richard Quiller Couch Bell's "British Stalk-eyed Crustacea," 1853. Couch was also interested in Cornish geology, and did useful work in developing the difficult subject of Cornish fossil remains. From 1848 onwards he was curator of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, and contributed to its "Transactions" several valuable papers, as well as annual reports. The diseases of the Cornish miners were a subject of his careful investigation, and his papers on the mortality of miners in the "Polytechnic Reports" (185760) are, as far as they go, of permanent value; they were translated into French. Couch died, in the full vigour of his powers,