My Author phrase searches need quotes - how do I turn this off?

Hi again. My second problem is that I can’t find author phrases without putting them in single quotation marks. What governs this, please? Any ideas on what I should test?

For example. I can search on Smith John or the National Library just fine in Any Field, but if I did that in the author field it would report an error. I can search on John or Smith, or as ‘Smith John’ in the author field fine. The search attributes look fine to me, words or phrases, any position in field, etc. I’m using all the smart settings in teh author parsing section, and they seem harmless. Any ideas, please?

Thanks again,

Gillian