* This account of the life and work of Ernest Gowers and of his father draws both on a private family archive of documents, and on the writings of Ann Scott in her books William Richard Gowers 1845–1915: Exploring the Victorian Brain (Oxford University Press, 2012), written with neurologists Mervyn Eadie and Andrew Lees; and Ernest Gowers: Plain Words and Forgotten Deeds (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
* Harold Nicolson, reviewing Plain Words for the Spectator in 1948, mocked Gowers for writing in the second sentence of his book that to ‘some officials’ it might seem ‘a work of supererogation’. In The Complete Plain Words, rather than make plain ‘a work of supererogation’ (one that goes beyond the call of duty), Gowers rewrote his opening to say that he suspected his book would be received, not now by ‘some’ but by ‘many’ officials, ‘without any marked enthusiasm or gratitude’.