What are widely-used UK-English style guides?

Question

In the UK, what are the equivalents to Chicago Manual of Style, the Associated Press style guide, Yahoo, APA, MLA, etc? Most importantly, what are their intended audiences? (AP is used for journalists, Yahoo for the web, APA for academia, et cetera.)

I'm specifically asking about style guides that are structured like indexes like the above references, as well as books that compare US to UK english. (The Economist style guide, for example, has a good section on this, but it's also quite short.)

(Note: I'm aware of this general question on style guides, and I'd have no objection to this question being folded into that one eventually. For now, I'm posting this as a separate question to get some attention to the question of UK usage.)

Answer 1

As far as UK style guides go, what you're probably looking for is the Oxford Guide to Style, formerly known as Hart's Rules (that link also contains a useful section outlining what the nearest US equivalents are). The University of Oxford website also provides an on-line style document, but it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the book.

There are other UK style guides as well:

• The Guardian style guide (also done according to an index)
• Copy-Editing:The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers
• The Times Style and Usage Guide
• The Telegraph Style Guide
• The Modern Humanities Research Association Style Guide (mainly for writing theses).