About this title: The fascinating true story about the relationship between the man who compiled the first Oxford English Dictionary and his major collaborator, an imprisoned murderer. A "New York Times" Notable Book for 1998.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Well-researched story of the two men prominent in the making of the O.E.D., one an American civil war veteran committed to a lunatic asylum. Minor wear to covers and owners name inked out. read more
Description: Fine. No Jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. "Remarkably readable, this chronicle of lexicography roams from the great dictionary itself to hidden nooks in the human psyche that sometimes house the motives for murder, the sources for sanity, and the blueprint for creativity. " read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. No marks on pages. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date Published: 09/1998
ISBN-13:9780060175962ISBN:0060175966
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 256 p. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780060994860ISBN:006099486X
Description: Good. A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary. Tight spine. Cover lightly worn with bumped corners, rubbed edges, dings. Prev. owner's name penned inside front cover. Underlining & marginal notes. Pp. 57-68 bottom corner creased; pp. 96-9 damp stain. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780060994860ISBN:006099486X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. The cover has light edge wear. The pages are clean and unmarked. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"This is a very interesting book on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The "professor" was a Scot, Dr. James Murray, who was the first editor to begin the great work of assembling this dictionary. His first wife died, but he remarried and had 11 children. The "madman" was an Yale-educated American surgeon, Dr. William Chester Minor, who served in the Civil War, but murdered an innocent man in the London area while in a delusional state of mind. He was incarcerated in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum for over 37 years, and during this time he saw an advertisement from the committee for the OED looking for word submissions. It was be beginning of a long period of time when Dr. Minor found something very constructive he could do with his time. He submitted over 12,000 entries for the OED with precise and scholarly research. After 10 years of his submissions (by post) the two men met at Broadmoor.
The story of the making of the dictionary was fascinating. Even more interesting to me was the idea of the newness of the concept of a dictionary. We take it so for granted, but there had been very few dictionaries -the author points out that Shakespeare had no dictionaries to consult when he was writing with his great vocabulary. Also, early dictionaries were not necessarily constructed in alphabetical order, something we also take for granted.
My one complaint about this book was that there was a little too much information about the "madman" for my taste. Dr. Minor's insanity grew more severe as he aged and the reports of his hallucinations were very sordid. It culminated in his self-mutilation-a ghastly account which male readers will find particularly gruesome.
Neither man saw the completion of the dictionary. Volumes were published as they were completed (alphabetically) but completion of all 20 volumes took almost exactly 70 years. Dr. Murray (nor anyone else) never anticipated it would take that long. But it is one of the finest, most complete dictionaries of the English language."
"Bibliophiles, logomaniacs, OEDites everywhere-- this is a GREAT word-addled romp. Who knew that the history of English dictionaries would be so riveting? The professor and the madman are respectively the editor of the OED and a brilliant and an institutionalized contributor. The narrative is the story of their lives, their phililogical and etymological overlap, and the completion of the OED. There's lots of spine-tingling victorian mystery with the murderous madman-- but in the end, in spite of the reminders of his heinous deeds, I just felt horribly sorry for him. Today his "madness" would have been treated for what we recognize as paranoid schizophrenia. The OED story is exciting (dictionaries, exciting? Yes!) and the insanity adds a gripping National Enquirer-esque drama to it all."
"*The is the review I'd posted on Amazon in 1999*: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mainly for learning about some of the key people and events behind one of the greatest undertakings in the English language. A lot of us today take the existence of the dictionary for granted, not realizing how it evolved from its first incarnations, or exactly what kind of work went into its preparation. Simon Winchester does a great job tracing the history of the dictionary to give frame of reference to his main story. The details of Dr. Minor's and James Murray's histories have been carefully researched and presented so as to thoroughly engage the reader. The only drawback I found is, despite the book's applaudable effort to dispel the myths surrounding Dr. Minor's involvement in the making of the OED, sometimes the writing style inadvertently falls into this same trap of myth-making. The words "lunatic" and "madman" are often used in the sensationalized sense the Victorians used them, thereby unnecessarily judging and glamorizing Dr. Minor's mental illness. Also, the defining incident at Lambeth is written as a Victorian thriller, complete with gas lamps, "bone-chilling cold" and a figure lurking in dark narrow streets. This extra air of mystery was not needed, as the real events are more than compelling enough to make you want to read more. All in all, though, an absorbing tale."
"The idea of taking a word, tracing its roots, finding its first origins in print, and writing multiple definitions that perfectly capture its meaning--sound like a daunting task? Now imagine doing this with EVERY word in the English language. That was the task taken up by the men and women who compiled the Oxford English Dictionary. There were many fascinating characters in this real-life drama, but Simon Winchester focuses his lens on perhaps the most compelling of all--Dr. William Minor. This tale of madness and genius has all the elements of a juicy Victorian novel: the debauchery of a well-born gentleman, the fortitude of a self-made scholar, and the struggles of a penniless widow. It all makes for a juicy, compelling book whose characters will haunt you long after the last page is turned."
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