H.W. Fowler

H.W. Fowler (born March 10, 1858, Tonbridge, Kent, England—died December 26, 1933, Hinton St. George, Somerset) was an English lexicographer and philologist whose works on the use and style of the English language had far-reaching influence. He was a man of moral and intellectual strength whose wit and grace were evident throughout his writings.

(Read H.L. Mencken’s 1926 Britannica essay on American English.)

Fowler was educated at Balliol College, Oxford (B.A. and M.A., 1886), and taught at Sedbergh School until 1899. He lived in London from 1899 to 1903, supporting himself with a small inheritance and the income from essays published in journals. He then moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands and began his collaboration with his younger brother Francis George Fowler.

The brothers’ first work was a four-volume translation, The Works of Lucian of Samosata (1905), followed by The King’s English (1906) and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1911). Their work was interrupted by military service during World War I; Francis George died of tuberculosis in 1918. After the war H.W. Fowler returned to Guernsey and in 1924 published The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English. The following year he moved to the village of Hinton St. George.

Fowler’s major work, planned with his brother, was A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926). It is an alphabetical listing of points of grammar, syntax, style, pronunciation, and punctuation. The depth, style, and humour of the work have made it a classic of English philology. Among Fowler’s other writings are a collection of essays, If Wishes Were Horses (1929), and a volume of poetry, Rhymes of Darby to Joan (1931).