Paul Allardyce

Writing under the name Paul Allardyce, he was actually George Paul Macdonell (1855–1895), a British barrister-at-law of Lincoln's Inn as well as a writer. That mix of legal training and literary work helps explain the tidy, methodical style of his best-known book.

He is remembered chiefly for Stops; Or, How to Punctuate: A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students, a late 19th-century manual on punctuation. The book was designed to help ordinary writers and students use punctuation clearly and confidently, and its practical tone has helped it outlast many similar guides.

Reliable information about his life is fairly limited in the sources available here, so it is safest to see him as a compact but interesting literary figure: a professionally trained man of letters whose most enduring legacy is a concise handbook on clear English style.