Henry Fowler and Ernest Gowers

Henry Fowler (1858–1933) wrote A Dictionary of Modern English Usage after a career of pretty much nothing. He worked hard; he was honest and honorable, but he had never amounted to much: teacher, journalist, soldier (lying about his 57 years so he could fight), and editor.

But then, in 1925, he published the most popularly-acclaimed dictionary since Samuel Johnson’s. It was a work that Joseph Epstein calls “one of a shelf of fifty or so great books written in English in the” twentieth century, noting:

It is immensely helpful, happily memorable, and endlessly rereadable [no sic]; it stands in a splendidly synecdochic relation to the culture that produced it: from the part that is this book one can infer the entire tradition of correctness, lucidity, and wit that once seemed emblematic of English intellectual life at its best.

The great work went through many editions, including a “concise” or “pocket” edition, becoming a mainstay in English grammar.

Ernest Gowers (1880–1966) enjoyed a high position in the British civil service, back in the days when a man had to be highly educated to attain such a position, not merely be recommended by a wealthy benefactor of your political party or recruited by a member of the deep state.