The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

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Description

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an abnormal tale of madness, genius, and the unbelievable obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary — and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was once one of the ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was once also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including writer interviews, really helpful reading, and more.

When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary put out a call all over the late 19th century pleading for “men of letters” to provide help with their mammoth undertaking, hundreds of responses came forth. Some helpers, like Dr. W.C. Minor, provided literally thousands of entries to the editors. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a Civil War veteran, was once if truth be told a certified lunatic who turned in his dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Simon Winchester has produced a mesmerizing coda to the deeply troubled Minor’s life, a life that in one sense began with the senseless murder of an innocent British brewery worker that the deluded Minor believed was once an assassin sent by one of his a large number of “enemies.”

Winchester also paints a rich portrait of the OED’s leading light, Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years of his life on a project he would not see completed in his lifetime. Winchester traces the origins of the drive to create a “Big Dictionary” down through Murray and far back into the past; the result is a fascinating compact history of the English language (albeit admittedly more interesting to linguistics enthusiasts than historians or true crime buffs). That Murray and Minor, whose lives took such wildly disparate turns yet were united in their fierce love of language, were able to view one another as peers and foster a warm friendship is just some of the delicately turned subplots of this compelling book. –Tjames Madison

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