[Sir Ernest Gowers, author of the guide to correct English usage ‘Plain Words’.] Three Autograph Letters Signed and one Typed Letter Signed to fellow-grammarian V. H. Collins, discussing a crux and the perils of being an authority in the field.

See the entry what was wrote about him in the Oxford DNB. The archives of the recipient, Vere Henry Collins (1872-1966), are now housed in the library at Yale. All four items signed ‘Ernest Gowers’ ONE: ALS, 27 June 1952. 2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, worn and spotted, with pin holes to one corner and short closed tear at edge of one of the two folds. Begins: ‘By all means. The more I look into your book the more I realise how true what I said was. / Of course everyone who writes the sort of books that you and I have written is asking for trouble in being discovered making the mistakes he denounces in others, and his readers pardonably take the keenest pleasure in pointing them out.’ Collins flatters him in thinking that Gowers has been ‘spared that experience’: ‘it is bound to happen and you must not let it worry you’. TWO: TLS, 29 July 1953. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, folded twice. He has ‘almost completed a new edition of “Plain Words” incorporating in it the material in the “A.B.C.”’, and he will not Collins’s points. ‘You are quite right in what you say about “prejudicial”.’ He ends by expressing delight in the news that Collins’s book is going into a second edition: ‘it thoroughly deserves it’. THREE: ALS, 27 March 1954. 2pp, 12mo. In similar condition to One. He thanks him for sending a copy of his new book, which ‘looks a worthy successor to your earlier one, and that is high praise’. He is finding it difficult to put it down once he starts ‘browsing through it’, and is flattered by ‘the number of allusions to me’. Ends: ‘you have a much better claim to be regarded as an expert in this field than I have’. FOUR: ALS, 16 March 1955. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, with small water stain. Folded once. He seems to remember that he had a ‘section on agree for the “Complete Plain Words” saying something like this: that I agree your draft was superseding I agree with or on or (from a superior to a subordinate) I agree to, and that the innovation had probably come to stay and there was no great harm in it. But I decided in the end that it was not worth putting in’. Ends: ‘I shall look forward greatly to seeing your new book’.