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The Professor and The Madman Audiobook Summary

A New York Times Notable Book

The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary–and literary history.

The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. But their surprise would pale in comparison to what they were about to discover when the committee insisted on honoring him. For Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

Masterfully researched and eloquently written, The Professor and the Madman “is the linguistic detective story of the decade.” (William Safire, New York Times Magazine)

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

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The Professor and The Madman Audiobook Narrator

Simon Winchester is the narrator of The Professor and The Madman audiobook that was written by Simon Winchester

About the Author(s) of The Professor and The Madman

Simon Winchester is the author of The Professor and The Madman

The Professor and The Madman Full Details

Narrator Simon Winchester
Length 7 hours 20 minutes
Author Simon Winchester
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date January 13, 2004
ISBN 9780060756321

Subjects

The publisher of the The Professor and The Madman is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Biography & Autobiography, Literary

Additional info

The publisher of the The Professor and The Madman is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780060756321.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Jeffrey

June 04, 2020

...for each word, there should be sentences that show the twists and turns of meanings—the way almost every word slips in its silvery, fishlike way, weaving this way and that, adding subtleties of nuance to itself, and then perhaps shedding them as public mood dictates.” Herbert Coleridge whose brilliant life was too short.I was driving into work the other day thinking about Herbert Coleridge and realized that I might possibly be the only person on the planet driving to work thinking about Herbie. Of course, there are such a vast number of people on this planet that chances are someone was thinking about him. Perhaps some Coleridge scholar working on a dissertation on Herbert’s famous grandfather, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or maybe someone thinking about the beginnings of the Oxford English Dictionary. Herbert Coleridge was technically the first editor of the OED and would have done a fine job, I’m sure, if he hadn’t caught a chill and died tragically young at thirty years of age. The reason I was thinking about him is because Simon Winchester mentioned him, and my quick research, before leaving for work, had been unsatisfactory in discovering how exactly he was descended from Samuel. He was not the son of one of Samuel’s sons so that only left the daughter Sara. Of course, my first thought was that she must have had him out of wedlock. I must formally apologize to Mrs. Sara Coleridge for thinking such scandalous thoughts. As it turns out, she married her first cousin Henry Nelson Coleridge. Herbert was very much a legitimate child. Though the idea of creating a complete dictionary of the English language was proposed in 1857. It was not until 1884 that parts of it were ready for publication. It floundered for decades under the weight of its own expectations. It wasn’t until the 1870s, when James Murray was asked to helm the project, that the possibility of achieving such a feat became a real possibility. Murray was a precocious talent, a true scholar who was, for the most part, self-educated. ”James continued to amass more and more knowledge, if only (as he would admit) for the sake of knowledge itself, and often in the most eccentric of ways.” We are living in an age of specialized knowledge, and too many people only read books or magazine articles that contribute to their specialized knowledge. Knowing something for the sake of knowing it has become such an outdated concept as to be considered odd behavior. James Murray in the scriptorium built to house all the slips of paper coming in from his readers to compile the OED.Murray knew that this project was too large for the academic community to shoulder alone. He placed advertisements asking for help from the whole country. He needed readers who would notate words and the sentence they were used in. The system Murray developed to handle this influx of information is ingenious, and like most clever systems simple by design. One of the people who answered his call for help was an American surgeon named Doctor William Chester Minor. He became one of the largest, most consistent contributors to the OED. He had a lot of time on his hands given the fact that he was…”detained in safe custody until Her Majesty's Pleasure be known.” Doesn’t that sound lovely. I could almost believe that Minor is sipping tea and eating cucumber sandwiches while seated at a garden table at Windsor waiting for the Queen to have a chance to see him. Unfortunately, it is just a pretty way of saying he is incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally insane. As you learn the details of his life he was most assuredly dangerously insane with roots for this insanity going back to the time he served in the Union army during the Civil War. The roots went deeper, in fact back into his genetic history. His family was delicate mentally. They were bright and brilliant but like many hyper intelligent people wound too tight. They felt things too intently. Two of his brothers committed suicide. Minor was beset by twisted, shattered dreams involving Irish people trying to kill. He was a self-reproaching masturbator who also has vivid nightmares which fueled his already prodigious self-abuse. ”Men would then break into his rooms, place him in a flying machine, and take him to brothels in Constantinople, where he would be forced to perform acts of terrible lewdness with cheap women and small girls.” His delusions wrapped in fear bled dreams into reality causing him to misinterpret events around him. This all culminated in one final act which made it readily apparent that his incarceration was the only option left for society. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the Madman and the Professor, without the added distractions of Ingrid Bergman or Paul Henreid.Though Minor was held in Broadmoor for the criminally insane, he had money and, therefore, could enjoy more luxury than the normal inmate. In fact, he rented a second cell, and that became his sitting room and library. He paid another inmate to build him beautiful, teak bookshelves. His wealth enabled him to also buy expensive antique books from bookstores not only in England, but from America as well. Considering the circumstances, he was beyond just comfortable, and if one can ignore the bars on the windows, you might even say he was pampered. Working on the OED helped him focus his mind and probably kept him from spiralling deeper into his own misconceptions. Dr. William Chester MinorThe OED did not reach completion until 1928. Neither Murray nor Minor lived long enough to see the job done, but without their Herculean efforts the whole idea may have been relegated to another generation or maybe never completed at all. As Murray became more and more famous, he became more and more uncomfortable with the attention. ”I’m a nobody,” he would write toward the end of the century, when fame had begun to creep up on him. “Treat me as a solar myth, or an echo, or an irrational quantity, or ignore me altogether.”If we are fortunate, we find a worthwhile task to do while on this planet. Murray and Minor both found that task in compiling the English language. Winchester does a wonderful job of conveying the absurdity and the wonderfulness of these two men finding so much in common, despite one existing in the hallowed halls of academia and the other existing in the bedlam of an asylum. I once dated a young lady who owned a two volume boxed copy of the OED, which also included a small drawer on top for the much needed magnifying glass. It was an affordable way to own the twenty volume OED. I can remember spending many afternoons randomly turning pages and reading definitions of words I’ll probably never read in a novel or ever use in a sentence. I was accused by a friend of dating this girl for the primary purpose of having access to her OED. I was appalled and offended by such a dastardly assertion. I was, if anything, dating her for her F. Scott Fitzgerald first edition collection. I could eventually afford an OED, but getting my hands on first edition Fitzgerald’s was looking more and more improbable. Alas, as it turns out, the woman was batshit crazy, so a merging of libraries never occurred. I do think back to those halcyon days when she had left for work, and it was just me, the OED, and the Fitzgeralds. *Sigh*If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.comI also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

Will

April 28, 2021

Simon Winchester - image from Andersons Bookshop Professor James Murray was one of the primary editors of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Dr Chester Minor, was one of the primary contributors to the massive project. But Murray did not know that Minor was an inmate in an insane asylum. James Murray, the professor of the title - image from SlateThe book tells their separate stories, how Murray rose to the prominence necessary to land this major position, how Minor emerged from a troubled, if well-to-do youth to commit a heinous and addled murder in London, and then to be institutionalized for the rest of his life. The book gives a vivid picture of the times (mid to late 19th century). Winchester has a gift for bringing history to life, and surprising us.William Chester Minor - image from WikimediaPublished - September 28, 2008Most recent update of this review - April 23, 2021=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pagesA film version of this book was released in 2019 , starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. It was not warmly received. The reviewer on the Roger Ebert site called it "he latest fiasco in bad movie history." It received a 41-reviewer, 80-audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.Top - Mel Gibson as James Murray - Bottom - Sean Penn as William Chester Minor - Image from Catchplay - The boys sure did like those long beardsReviews of other Simon Winchester books we have read:-----2021 - Land - Land-----2018 - The Perfectionists-----2015 - Pacific-----2010 - Atlantic-----2008 - The Man Who Loved China-----2005 - Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded-----2001 - The Map That Changed the WorldThere are plenty more Winchester books out there. I have listed only the ones I have read.

Sean

June 10, 2016

People tend to juxtapose the idea of reading the dictionary with other activities as a means of underscoring how incredibly uninteresting and undesirable those other activities are. For example: “I have to interact with Sean today…UGH. I’d much rather read the dictionary.”This is an effective comparison for good reason. Look, I love words as much as the next guy, but even I find reading the dictionary only slightly more fun than reading the phone book (“What’s a phone book?” ask all the millennials simultaneously, scratching their virtual heads). Consequently, it may come as a shock to hear that reading ABOUT a dictionary is quite delightful. Winchester’s chronicle of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary—or, at least, the bizarre story of Dr. William Chester Minor’s contribution to it—is a fascinating story of perseverance, mental illness, and logophilia (which is not, I assure you, a strange proclivity for fornicating with corporate logos). Say what you will about the OED (primary critiques might focus on its overwhelmingly white maleness), it’s an epic achievement in the history of language, and the fact that a not insignificant portion of its content was contributed by a mentally unstable American murderer who thought that mysterious beings snuck into his room at night to violate him and “turn him into a pimp” is one of the more delightful intriguing footnotes you’ll come across. In short, when Professor James Murray, the man tasked with being the architect of the OED, sent out a call for volunteers to assist the editors in compiling examples of how words were used to help contextualize definitions, it was Minor, already an inmate at an asylum after it was determined he was not mentally fit to be jailed for his crime, who stood first (or, at least, among the first rank) among equals when it came to contributing. A brilliant man with nothing but time (and blood, one might argue) on his hands, Minor diligently scoured pages and pages of texts from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries to find the supporting references that are the OED’s hallmark. That he produced such a prodigious and precise body of work while battling his own inner demons is a testament to his impressive mental faculties.To illustrate just how powerful those demons were, consider, for a moment—an exceedingly painful moment—that, at one point, in a desperate attempt to reconcile a burgeoning religiosity with past sexual indiscretions and ongoing sex-fueled delusions, Minor, a doctor by trade, used a penknife to CUT OFF HIS OWN PENIS. Now, look—we all have days (those of us with penises (penii?), I mean) where we’re frustrated with the little guy. I, for example, get agitated when I accidentally mix mine up with the garden hose when doing yard work (which happens more frequently than you’d think on account of similarities in length, girth, and greenness). But, still—the idea of it being severed, let alone severing it myself sans anesthesia and using a turn-of-the-century penknife…well, let’s just say that I’d rather read the dictionary.This is by turns fascinating, grotesque, tragic, and informative—recommended for those who like their historical monographs esoteric and bizarre.

Hannah

January 31, 2018

Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend. Eloquent writing and the talented vocal work of narrator Simon Jones make this brief account of one of the greatest known editors of the OED and his longtime collaborator (a man who conducted his research from the confines of an asylum) a fascinating read/listen.

Kinga

February 07, 2017

If you know me personally or almost personally, then you should be aware that I am quite mad. I have a heavy obsession with the alphabet, with inventing bizarre systems that rule just about anything in my life and catalouging things. It is quite obvious that a book about a lunatic and creating Oxford English Dictionary would be a winner with me. And it was.However, it wasn't perfect. Winchester performed some weird narrative experiments. For example, he started off with a really exciting scene, then er... repeated that scene word by word in the middle of the book. And then... a chapter or so later, he said it actually never happened. This is a non fiction book!! Also, Simon Winchester is obviously psychic because he can tell exactly what everyone was thinking and feeling ages ago. The conviction which he states it all with is imperturbable.It's all forgiven, though, because any book that involves someone cutting their penis off (ESPECIALLY non fiction) can't get anything less than four stars.

Caroline

December 08, 2021

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Cecily's marvellous review* has pointed out that Simon Winchester had a 'novelistic approach' to writing it, and I think she is absolutely right. Even so, in spite of Winchester guesstimates and meanderings (or perhaps because of them), I enjoyed it hugely. My one small quibble is that each chapter starts with an entry from the Oxford English Dictionary (at the time called The New English Dictionary.) Noooooo. Not fun. This may be one of the greatest dictionaries in the world, but you only ever want to see the specific words you want to check out, not a bunch of fairly random examples.Before reading the book I'd heard vaguely about the mentally disturbed surgeon in Broadmoor who contributed to the making of the dictionary. I presumed the story was largely based on sensationalism, and that in reality he'd probably made a few odd minor submissions at most. But it turns out that this was far from being the case. For about 20 years the surgeon - William Chester Minor - worked intensely, gathering quotations that would help define what different words meant. The dictionary took 70 years to complete, and throughout that time the editors of the dictionary relied on an army of volunteers to augment the work being done in the office in Oxford. William Minor was at the forefront of those volunteers. Part of the book describes the history of English dictionaries, which was interesting and part of the book describes the life of Minor, which for me was even more interesting. (view spoiler)[ Minor had serious mental health problems. I'm not fond of retrospective diagnoses, but it was pretty well certain that he had what would nowadays be called schizophrenia, and in those days there was no medication to alleviate symptoms.Born in Ceylon in 1834 to missionary parents, he'd spent most of his life in America, going to Yale to study medicine, and then joining the army as a surgeon. He was invalided out with a pension after a few years though, in 1868, as he was showing more and more obvious signs of paranoia. Shortly thereafter he came to London. Tragically, soon after that he shot and killed someone - George Merritt - whom he felt was threatening him. Minor was then incarcerated in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Merrit, the man he'd shot, had a family, and it is telling that Minor decided to make ongoing financial payments to help support them.Life in Broadmoor was unexpectedly civilized - perhaps to a degree because of Merrit's army pension, but also because at that time it had a kindly governor. He had two rooms, one full of books, and he spent days painting and doing research for the dictionary. He was intelligent and knowledgeable to talk with. Night time was different though. Minor was plagued with awful nightmares and hallucinations of figures invading his rooms. Many of his delusions were of a sexual nature, and he was often concerned about the terrible things he felt he had done to people during these imagined rampages. His days though were a lot more congenial. Over time he corresponded with Dr. James Murray, the editor at The New English Dictionary, and through their correspondence they became friendly. Apparently when Murray wrote to Minor he was unaware that Broadmoor was an asylum, instead presuming it was the sort comfortable house that an educated man might well live in. It was only when he went to visit Minor one day that he realised the reality of his situation, and learnt his true story. To his credit he didn't let this affect their relationship, and their correspondence and Murray's visits to Broadmoor continued.Regrettably Minor's illness got worse as he aged. He became far less sociable, and contributed much less to the dictionary too. The situation at Broadmoor became more difficult as well, when a new person took over the role of governor, who was much more rule-bound, and less sympathetic towards Minor. He made him get rid of his room full of books. As he grew older Minor - who had always defined himself agnostic - became religious, declaring himself to be a deist. Perhaps in the light of his growing religious ideas, his nightly fantasies began causing him even more distress. This culminated in him castrating himself , about 30 years after entering Broadmoor. He survived, but this crisis aside, his general quality of life had gone downhill too.In the early 20th century his brother Arthur and James Murray's wife, (now a widow), pleaded for him to be allowed to return to America, and in 1910 this happened. He spent his time first in an asylum in Washington DC, and later in a hospital for the elderly insane in Hartford, Connecticut, known as The Retreat, dying on March 26, 1920.The New English Dictionary took another eight years to finish, comprising twelve volumes, with 414,825 words defined. It was achieved largely on the back of the mass of volunteers who had contributed to this mammoth task.....and none more diligently than William Minor. (hide spoiler)]I think this is a wonderful book for all readers. Who doesn't want to learn more about dictionaries? Highly recommended.* Cecily's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Lois

December 10, 2022

Sufficiently reviewed by others -- this was the book I was on my way to read when I got snagged by Winchester's fascinating Needham biography. Rippling high-journalistic style that carried me right along, richly discursive. Some of his other titles are now tugging my eye, but I'm not sure how much of one voice I should read in a row.Ta, L.

Lynne

November 01, 2018

I am unable to write a worthwhile review on this wonderful book by Simon Winchester. He has actually managed to make a book based upon the making of the Oxford English Dictionary a magical work. To think that a professor, James Murray, could work, via correspondence, with an American, Dr William Minor, a retired surgeon, for over twenty years and not realize until then that Dr Minor was in Broadmoor, a very famous and yet harsh lunatic asylum. Professor Murray, as he had never met him beforehand, assumed it was a private household address.Dr Minor was so instrumental in the Oxford English Dictionary coming to fruition, even though it wasn't completely finished until a long time after his death. I guess he had time on his hands but he managed to have the use of a second cell and this was crammed full of his books! Can you imagine that!It's interesting how analysis by Simon Winchester puts Dr Minor's madness down to his participation in the American Civil War and particularly the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. This is a quite remarkable section of the book and so worth reading.Anyway, highly recommended.Another remarkable book by the same author is "The Man Who Loved China". Quite an exquisite book.

Elyse

January 26, 2022

3.5 stars.A lot of interesting and fascinating material covered in this book. But also some not so interesting and fascinating. If I had read it instead of listened to it, I don't know if I would've liked it or even finished it in a timely manner. But Winchester himself narrates and kept my attention. Lexicography and etymology seem incredibly boring. lol.I had no idea about any of this! I don't think I've ever even used or seen an Oxford English Dictionary, being an American. I only remember Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, when people still owned hard copies of dictionaries. lol. Webster's Dictionary, then called the American Dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1828 and the Oxford English Dictionary's final volume, W, was published in 1928. Interesting!The story of William Chester Minor was the fascinating part of this book. The poor man suffered from some combination of PTSD and schizophrenia, no one knows what exactly he was plagued with, but he had predatory delusions and also took to talking to people who weren't there. And then some (no spoilers)! And because of his illness, he murdered a man in cold blood and was put in an asylum for the rest of his life. But aside from that, he was a brilliant man who thrived on helping James Murray and others compile words for England's first dictionary. His symptoms abated when he was able to focus on reading, marking down words, definitions, and sample quotes and then sending them to London.James Murray wasn't quite as exciting as his pen pal, whom he did not know was in an asylum when he started receiving word slips for the OED. This is where the lexicography and etymology got a bit boring. I did love that each chapter began with a word and definition essentially summarizing its contents. I didn't realize the book was written in 1998 until Winchester was narrating the resources he used! And I enjoyed the conversation between Winchester and the then current editor of the OED.

Debbie

September 01, 2008

This book has been on my to-read list for some time, and I had a few preconceived ideas that turned out to be wrong. For instance, I had assumed that the "madman" would have been someone psychotically insane, the type of man that you would pass in the street and cross to the other side, since he would be unkempt and smelly and gibbering nonsense to unseen companions. As it turns out, the "madman" was an American doctor, educated at Yale, who was a surgeon and former Army officer. He apparently suffered from schizophrenia or some similar mental illness, and in a moment of insanity shoots an innocent factory worker on his way to work. The subsequent trial became one of the first instances to find someone guilty of the charge, but innocent by reason of insanity. William Chester Minor spends the rest of his life in an insane asylum, the name of which is the basis for the word "bedlam." The story weaves back and forth between a Dickensian London, Civil War battlefields and an acedemic society that had taken on the daunting task of putting together a dictionary that encompassed the English language in its entirety. An appeal went out to the public for learned volunteers to read books and submit words on scraps of paper along with their origin, context and definitions. Tens of thousands of entries came from one person--William Chester Minor. Once the entire background of the man is known, it is not too surprising; he has all of the time in the world on his hands, and hundreds of books at his disposal. It took over 70 years for the OED to be completed. One has to wonder how much longer it would have taken if William Chester Minor had not shot and killed poor George Merritt. I found this book fascinating. At times the author becomes bogged down in detail, causing the mind to wander a bit, which is why I gave 4 stars instead of 5. Still a must-read for all lovers of words.

Cosimo

March 06, 2019

Voci e Volumi“Lavorava sodo, immerso nei pensieri e con rapita concentrazione: fece indici e raccolte e collazioni di parole e frasi da ognuno dei suoi libri, finché la scrivania della prigione non fu ingombra dei suoi quaderni, ciascuno contenente un elenco alfabetico generale di parole tratte da tutta la sua eclettica biblioteca, una piccola gemma preziosissima e molto apprezzata”.Simon Winchester è riconosciuto come uno dei più illustri autori di non-fiction e biografie; formatosi su studi di geologia, fece poi grande esperienza di giornalista e di viaggiatore seguendo differenti e anomale ricerche. Questo studio testimonia il suo amore per le parole e la gratitudine per il loro valore. Philology: amore per il sapere e la letteratura, secondo l'OED, Oxford English Dictionary (1928), opera di inestimabile cultura e di straordinaria storia, come è narrato in queste pregevoli pagine (dove si scopre che il lungo lavoro risale fino al tempo del celebre Samuel Johnson). La genesi del monumentale trattato lessicografico rivela un tesoro prezioso e aneddoti curiosi e poco convenzionali, nel guscio della Philological Society londinese. Il saggio ibrido è la biografia di William C. Minor, un uomo eccentrico e dal destino drammatico, che fu tra i maggiori collaboratori del dizionario, grazie all'amicizia che strinse con il prof. James Murray, docente oxfordiano di origini scozzesi e curatore editoriale del testo, e al tempo stesso la storia di quell'opus britannico che è considerato il principe dei vocabolari. Minor viveva a Broadmoor, un manicomio criminale, condannato per omicidio: nei sobborghi di Londra, aveva ucciso in preda a follia uno sconosciuto, vittima anonima e casuale; era un medico e un erudito e di alta estrazione sociale, dipingeva, era americano ma nato a Ceylon, figlio di missionari, e aveva partecipato alla Guerra di Secessione, prestando servizio nella battaglia di Wilderness (1864); portò con sé in eredità il trauma dell'orrore bellico, dove aveva dovuto marchiare un essere umano, colpevole di diserzione. La sua malattia fu diagnosticata come demenza precoce o schizofrenia paranoide, oggi si parlerebbe forse di disordine da stress post-traumatico; insomma allo stato delle cose, Minor era ”assolutamente e irreversibilmente pazzo”. Venne ricoverato in un ospedale del Berkshire: l'esercito continuò a pagare la sua pensione e quindi potè dedicarsi, vivendo in due stanze, in relativa libertà e pieno di libri, a compilare le voci e le citazioni necessarie al magnifico e generoso corrispondente accademico, come se questo dilettarsi fosse una terapia per la sua anima incontenibile, infiammata e infranta. Protagonisti della sua vita furono quindi il dolore e la conoscenza, e il loro imperscrutabile legame; e poi c'è la storia come materia di cultura europea, che è sempre bene tenere in posizione centrale, perché attiva in una redenzione collettiva. L'Inghilterra vittoriana era terra di grandi visioni e enormi ambizioni, ma era insieme un luogo dove demoni e incubi e paura imperversavano. Colpisce il pensiero, nel lettore, scoprire come una vita segregata possa trasformarsi, con adeguati strumenti e benevole risorse e un'inedita apertura, sebbene fondata in parte sulla finzione, in qualcosa di dialogico, creativo e profondo. Certo, nulla può impedire che la tragicità dell'esistere si sviluppi contagiando ogni personaggio in una vicenda di oscurità e oblio, ma restano a noi come dono cognitivo e emozionale la dolce memoria, il patrimonio linguistico e i frutti prodotti da quell'unica e ammirevole esperienza, che ha costruito qualcosa di eterno.

Darla

August 31, 2017

As a linear thinker, I greatly appreciated the detailed process that Dr. Murray set in motion to begin the immense task of creating a proper English dictionary. This became the revered and iconic Oxford English Dictionary (OED).Attempting such a daunting task in the 19th century required many, many readers and contributors to comb all English works to help define the word accurately in all its forms while determining when it was first used as well as including sentences showing usage. Murray placed ads with booksellers and one of those ads found its way to Dr. Minor in his asylum cell. Thus a decades-long relationship was born which benefited both men as well as the dictionary project.As many nonfiction books show us, truth can absolutely be stranger than fiction. Winchester tells us the story in such a way that we appreciate both players while understanding the circumstances they were immersed in. Recommended!

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