reading

Contents

Context

Overview

Summary

Timeline

Cast of Characters

Direct Quotes

Trivia

What’s That Word?

Critical Response

About Simon Winchester

For Your Information

Bibliography

Context

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) stands as the uncontested paragon of English language scholarship. But one particular piece of its history has long remained untold: the story of the friendship between Dr. James Murray, the dictionary’s first editor, and Dr. W. C. Minor, a volunteer contributor who submitted more than ten thousand quotations to the compilation of references while imprisoned in a hospital for the criminally insane. The details of their extraordinary relationship were kept in sealed government files and secret hospital records for a century. After gaining access to those previously unseen files and correspondence, Simon Winchester, a longtime journalist thrilled by Minor and Murray’s collaboration, pieced together the incredible true story of two men and the illustrious dictionary they helped create.

With The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Winchester depicts Victorian England as a whole while reconstructing the lives of Murray and Minor, whose paths converged in an unusual and providential way. The book, which sold more than a million copies, also provides a history of English lexicography. The story this unlikely pair is more than delightful historical trivia—it illuminates the history of one of the English-speaking world’s greatest literary achievements: the Oxford English Dictionary.

Overview

What did the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary have in common with a criminally insane American imprisoned in an English asylum? Quite a lot, as it turns out. The Professor and the Madman tells the tale of two men: Dr. James Murray, the venerated philologist and lexicographer who compiled much of the first OED, and Dr. W. C. Minor, a former US Army surgeon serving time at the Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Broadmoor, for murder. Murray and Minor—the titular professor and madman—forged a professional relationship and, ultimately, a friendship that profoundly influenced the making of the OED—and, consequently, the entire English literary world.

The compilation of the OED, which began in 1857, was one of the most formidable and ambitious projects undertaken in the history of the English language. Victorian-era England vitally needed a comprehensive dictionary—England had become a major colonial power, and the English language was on the verge of becoming the world’s lingua franca. The existing dictionaries were insufficient, as they included only some words, not all.

The London Philological Society, an elite group of scholars, theologists, and linguists, decided to heed the call for a better dictionary. One member, Richard Chenevix Trench, proposed a dictionary that would include each word in the English language, its definition, and quotations illustrating its meaning and usage. The task was an enormous one, and it took nearly twenty years for the Philological Society to find a publisher in the Oxford University Press. The highly esteemed James Murray was named editor, and he immediately put out a public call for volunteers to contribute possible quotations to the OED.

William Chester (W. C.) Minor, confined at the Broadmoor, saw and answered the call. Equipped with a considerable collection of books in his cell—as well as intelligence, diligence, and free time—he immediately began to comb through them and pick out appropriate quotations. Over the course of twenty years, he contributed more than ten thousand citations to the OED. He and Murray struck up a regular correspondence.

Oxford English Dictionary—