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Author Winchester, Simon.

Title The professor and the madman : a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English dictionary / Simon Winchester.

Publication Info. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, [1998]
©1998

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Berlin-Peck Memorial Library - Non Fiction  423 WINCHESTER    Check Shelf
 Bloomfield, Prosser Library - Adult Department  423 WIN    Storage
 Bristol, Main Library - Non Fiction  423 W721    Check Shelf
 Bristol, Manross Branch - Non Fiction  423.092 W    Check Shelf
 Canton Public Library - Adult Department  423.028 WINCHESTER    DUE 04-20-24
 Colchester, Cragin Memorial Library - Adult Department  423 WINCHESTER, SIMON    Check Shelf
 Cromwell-Belden Public Library - Adult Department  423 WIN    Check Shelf
 East Hartford, Raymond Library - Adult Department  423.092 WINCHESTER    Check Shelf
 East Windsor, Library Association of Warehouse Point - Adult Department  423.092 WIN    Check Shelf
 Enfield, Main Library - Adult Department  423 WIN    Check Shelf

Edition First edition.
Description xi, 242 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-242).
Contents 1. The dead of night in Lambeth Marsh -- 2. The man who taught Latin to cattle -- 3. The madness of war -- 4. Gathering Earth's daughters -- 5. The big dictionary conceived -- 6. The scholar in cell block two -- 7. Entering the lists -- 8. Annulated, art, brick-tea, buckwheat -- 9. The meeting of minds -- 10. The unkindest cut -- 11. Then only the monuments.
Summary The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857, took seventy years to complete, drew from tens of thousands of brilliant minds, and organized the sprawling language into 414,825 precise definitions. But hidden within the rituals of its creation is a fascinating and mysterious story - a story of two remarkable men whose strange twenty-year relationship lies at the core of this historic undertaking. Professor James Murray, an astonishingly learned former schoolmaster and bank clerk, was the distinguished editor of the OED project. Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon from New Haven, Connecticut, who had served in the Civil War, was one of thousands of contributors who submitted illustrative quotations of words to be used in the dictionary. But Minor was no ordinary contributor. He was remarkably prolific, sending thousands of neat, handwritten quotations from his home in the small village of Crowthorne, fifty miles from Oxford. On numerous occasions Murray invited Minor to visit Oxford and celebrate his work, but Murray's offer was regularly - and mysteriously - refused. Thus the two men, for two decades, maintained a close relationship only through correspondence. Finally, in 1896, after Minor had sent nearly ten thousand definitions to the dictionary but had still never traveled from his home, a puzzled Murray set out to visit him. It was then that Murray finally learned the truth about Minor - that, in addition to being a masterful wordsmith, Minor was also a murderer, clinically insane - and locked up in Broadmoor, England's harshest asylum for criminal lunatics.
Subject Murray, James A. H. (James Augustus Henry), 1837-1915 -- Friends and associates.
Minor, William Chester.
Oxford English dictionary.
New English dictionary on historical principles.
English language -- Lexicography -- History -- 19th century.
Psychiatric hospital patients -- Great Britain -- Biography.
Encyclopedias and dictionaries -- History and criticism.
Lexicographers -- Great Britain -- Biography.
English language -- Etymology.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Veterans -- Biography.
Minor, William Chester. (OCoLC)fst00412394
Murray, James A. H. (James Augustus Henry), 1837-1915 (OCoLC)fst01898763
New English dictionary on historical principles. (OCoLC)fst01361405
Oxford English dictionary. (OCoLC)fst01363319
English language -- Etymology. (OCoLC)fst00911149
English language -- Lexicography. (OCoLC)fst00911326
Lexicographers. (OCoLC)fst00997019
Psychiatric hospital patients. (OCoLC)fst01081030
Veterans. (OCoLC)fst01165710
Great Britain. (OCoLC)fst01204623
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Genre/Form Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
Biography. (OCoLC)fst01423686
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
ISBN 0060175966
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