The Professor and the Madman

English language

Published Feb. 27, 2005

ISBN:
978-0-06-083978-9
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4 stars (36 reviews)

The making of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the OED's editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him. What he found was incredible - Minor was a millionaire American civil war surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder and yet who dedicated his entire cell-bound life to work on the English language.

7 editions

Review of 'The Professor and the Madman' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

An interesting tale behind the creation and legacy of the Oxford English Dictionary. I feel like the tale dragged a bit in the beginning while it set up the scene, but the middle and end of the book made up for it. I ultimately came away from the book feeling like Minor was treated terribly in his late years, both by the institution he spent much of his life in, and then later the institution he ended up in in the States. This is largely due to the misunderstanding of mental diseases in his era, but in some respects conditions haven't improved much today.

Review of 'The Professor and the Madman' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

At first it seemed like a good idea to start this review with a definition, since that is how Simon Winchester started his chapters, but then I thought better of it, since that is not one of the features I enjoyed about this book. So, no gimmicky start to my short review.

The author introduces us to two very different men whose lives converge in an unlikely way, which involved the monumental task of creating The Oxford English Dictionary, The history of the work--and lack thereof-- that came before the OED was very interesting, and may have been my favorite part of the book. I still can't imagine how the OED was accomplished before word processors. Actually, the project started before typewriters.

The man that lead this operation was lexicographer and philologist James Murray, and work started in 1857. From 1884-1928, the dictionary was published in installments, or fascicles, which …

Review of 'The Professor and the Madman' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Great story, but overall it felt... hollow. The author had a daunting task: digging up scant historical records, then writing a book-length tale while remaining true to fact. Not quite history, not quite historical fiction. For the most part it worked: the book was well organized, readable, gripping, informative, even beautiful. Every so often, though, a small hiccup that popped me out of the book. And so many unanswered questions, so many incomplete pictures. Kudos to Winchester for not making things up, but it gives this reader a sense of loss.

4 stars is unfair. I would give 4.5 stars if I could. And I'm glad Winchester wrote it this way, glad that it's book length instead of a blog post or an article in Smithsonian magazine. This is very much worth reading; I just don't know what mindset to go into it with.

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