F. P. Wilson

[1] At the outbreak of World War I Wilson joined the army, serving in France, and sustaining serious injuries at Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Recovery in hospital took over a year, and, besides, left Wilson with a permanent limp and vulnerability to recurrent infections.

He became general editor of the Malone Society in 1948 and during his dozen years at the helm edited reprints of many works were produced including those of John Fletcher, Samuel Rowley, and Thomas Middleton.

[1] According to ODNB biographers, Jean Robertson and P. J. Connell, "The chief merits of Wilson's dramatic criticism were his constant alertness to the exigencies of the stage (he was a promising amateur actor in his early days); and, most remarkably, his unrivalled knowledge of contemporary word usage and phraseology,..." yielding ultimately his Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs.

He was, they continue, "the most learned Elizabethan scholar of his generation, as well as a master of social graces and a witty conversationalist.