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Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Paperback – Illustrated, January 1, 2005

by Simon Winchester (Author)

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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.

Print length

242 pages
Language

English
Publication date

January 1, 2005
Dimensions

5.31 x 0.65 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

9780060839789
Lexile measure

1330L
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A brisk, gracefully executed work of popular intellectual history, a model of its kind.” -- Washington Post

“An extraordinary tale, and Simon Winchester could not have told it better. . . . [He] has written a splendid book.” -- The Economist

“Elegant and scrupulous.” -- David Walton, New York Times Book Review

“There is much truth to be drawn [from The Professor and the Madman] about Victorian pride, the relation between language and the world, and the fine line between sanity and madness.” -- Wall Street Journal

“Winchester combines a reporter’s eye for detail with a historian’s sense of scale. His writing is droll and eloquent.” -- USA Today

“One of the great strengths of this book is historical mise-en-scene, particularly for nineteenth-century America and England...[a] marvelous work of historical and philogical imagination.” -- Linda Bridges, National Review

“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.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“The Professor and the Madman...is the linguistic detective story of the decade.... Winchester does a superb job of historical research that should entice readers even more interested in deeds than words.” -- William Safire, New York Times Magazine

“Winchester’s history of the OED is brisk and entertaining” -- Mark Rozzo, Washington Post Book World

From the Back Cover

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, 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 compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

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

Start reading The Professor and the Madman on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0060839783
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; 1st edition (January 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 242 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780060839789
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1330L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.65 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #35,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4 in History of Books
- #34 in General Books & Reading
- #44 in Historical British Biographies

Customer Reviews:
1,653 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		65%
4 star		20%
3 star		10%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Great start and irritating finish

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2018

Verified Purchase

I love books that take a minor detail from history, research the heck out of it, and find an interesting story in the process. I would like to research and write a book like that. I was loving this book until the final chapter. At that point the author got a bit preachy and worse yet, included some misinformation about prevalence and etiology of psychiatric disorders. But first the story, which is fascinating!

This book is about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Have you ever thought about how difficult it would be to compile a list of words, their origins, definitions, and literary quotes to support the definition in the era before computers? I cannot believe that dictionaries were printed under those conditions! The book does a wonderful job of explaining the arduous task of making a dictionary. Numerous volunteers were recruited to find words in literature and support the definitions. The author includes a brief history of the dictionaries that came before the OED. The story really focuses on James Murray and his work organizing the dictionary. It also focuses on one of the volunteers, Dr. W. C. Minor. He was a civil war physician who witnessed terrible things and lost his mind. He murdered a man while he was in a delusional state. He was placed in Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane for a number of years and eventually transferred to St. Elizabeth’s in Washington D. C. While at Broadmoor he volunteered to his time to compile words for the dictionary and was one of the more prodigious contributors. He and Professor Murray had a long scholarly correspondence, eventually meeting at Broadmoor and becoming friends.

This is a very interesting story and certainly gives you an appreciation for dictionaries and the people who create them. I was really enjoying this book until the end. The author goes on for several pages about the injustice to the man murdered by Dr. Minor, who in effect has been lost to history. Valid point, but in my opinion the author was straying from the purpose of his book. My larger concern is with some inaccuracies about mental illness. He talks about PTSD not being recognized until the Gulf War (1990-91). However, the diagnosis was listed in the DSM in 1980. And of course “Shell Shocked” from WWI was a precursor to our current definition of PTSD. This may have been an ambiguously expressed idea rather than an actual error. I also disagree with his statement about lack of advances in medical treatment of schizophrenia and our knowledge of the etiology. Since clinical psychology is my field of study and my career some of these inaccuracies were glaring and spoiled an otherwise interesting and well-written book. This may be a small point. I do hope that these were editorial rather than research errors. For those of you who stuck with my soapbox rant, thank you for reading!

131 people found this helpful

Helpful

A Fairly Interesting True Story About The First Real English Dictionary

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Dr. W. C. Minor, whose story is at the center of Simon Winchester's The Professor and The Madman, is "crazy". From the symptoms that are described in the book, he would most likely today be classified as a paranoid schizophrenic. An intelligent and sophisticated man, he was a surgeon and a member of the Union Army during the Civil War before he moved to the UK and his delusions of being tormented in his sleep led him to fatally shoot an innocent man. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a British asylum for most of the rest of his life. But he didn't stop being an educated man solely by virtue of his condition, and with his endless spare time he got himself involved in a one-of-a-kind project: the Oxford English Dictionary.

Winchester weaves together the tale of Dr. Minor and the history of dictionaries leading up to the creation of the OED. English is a language quite different than many of the other European ones in the way it has grown explosively and liberally borrowed from others, and for quite a long time there was no real attempt to catalog it: a few volumes that sought to define the most unusual words existed, but an actual dictionary of ALL the words with ALL their meanings didn't really happen until the OED. It took decades of work and thousands of volunteers to develop the dictionary, and Minor's contribution thereto was significant indeed...enough to merit a dedication in the finished product even.

Dr. Minor was seriously ill and a criminal at that, but we should know by now that these things do not per se mean that someone is incapable of being a productive member of society. That being said, there is a shock value there: we don't usually think of murderers as the kind of people who wind up knee-deep in dictionary development. Winchester chooses to emphasize Minor's humanity rather than sensationalize his crime, taking us through his life as the son of missionaries in Sri Lanka (there's an odd bit of colonialism where Winchester is weirdly attached to the British name of Ceylon) through the horrors he would have seen as a medical professional in the Civil War and his subsequent mental decline, leading down to his crime and its punishment, and then wrapping up with his long years in institutional care. Even though because of the time in history, that care consisted mostly of a relatively gentle confinement rather than actual treatment, it still should be enough to remind us that there are probably plenty of people in jail or psychiatric hospitals today who do have something to offer the world.

The book itself is solid but not really exceptional in any way. It's an interesting story and well-told, but it wasn't an especially memorable or special read. For non-fiction readers or people interested in dictionary development, it's definitely a good choice, but I don't know that I'd recommend going out of one's way to read it if this sort of thing doesn't usually do it for you.

51 people found this helpful

Helpful

Seneca

A fascinating book, marred by a bad last chapter.

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2017

Verified Purchase

An absolutely fascinating account of the origins of the largest lexical enterprise in history, the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as the men who initiated it and worked on it.

Among the latter, the most interesting was William Minor. An American and a doctor by training, he served in the US Army during the last years of the Civil War when he went through, and participated in, some gruesome events indeed. These events may or may not have triggered his paranoia which caused him to murder an innocent laborer in London, where he moved after the war's end. Whereupon he was judged insane and committed to an asylum for life. It was from his cell, in reality two comfortable rooms, that he made a vast contribution to the Dictionary.

The weakest part of the book comes towards the end, There Winchester, speculates--speculates is the right word--about what may have caused MInor's paranoia and mental illness. Comparing the symptoms to those of PTSD, he claims that the latter was first identified during the 1991 Gulf War! A pity, for I would gladly have given his book five stars.

27 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Metropolitan Critic

Strange tale of lexicography and murder well read (in the audio version) by the author

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2011

Verified Purchase

The Professor and the Madman tells the story of Dr W.C. Minor, a Victorian murderer who became one of the most important contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary, posting his work to the editor of that dictionary from his cells in Broadmoor. Minor was spared the noose after the court had decided - rightly - that he was insane.

Winchester's book has been criticised on two grounds. First, that the basic story is rather thin for book length treatment and has been extended by means of background material, ornate physical descriptions and so on. Second, that the boundary between fact and fiction is not clear.

As for the first charge, it's true that the story is developed at a slow and careful pace, but the background material is compelling. Thus we learn about the enlightened treatment of the insane in the English criminal justice system, the brutal punishments in use in the American Civil War (including branding), the history of dictionary making, the categorisation of mental illness.

On the charge of fictionalisation, Winchester should I think be acquitted - for example he rejects the attractive (but untrue) tale that the editor of the OED, James Murray, only found out about Minor's situation when he went to visit him at Broadmoor. Where Winchester is speculating, as for example on the question of what triggered Minor's insanity, this is made clear.

The audiobook consists of an unabridged reading by Winchester himself. It is in general very well done. Perhaps it was a mistake to attempt a Scottish accent when recounting the words of James Murray - Winchester's effort at Border Scots is not much better than Dick van Dyke's characterisation of the cockney. But the normal reading voice is a pleasant Oxford English.

One person found this helpful

Winshill-D

Our History

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

I read this book some years ago now whilst staying with friends in Germany. The book is so fascinating that I have never forgotten it and, eventually wished to renew my acquaintance with the detail once again. Sure enough, I was as transfixed with it as I was the first time. A tale of tragedy incorporated with the enormous task of putting together our very first Oxford English Dictionary.
There had been other dictionaries before of course, but this proved to be the definitive.
Simon Winchester is a 'past-master' of research and story telling that makes you keep turning pages until well in to the late evening.

Derrick Orton

Ransen Owen

An interesting true story well told.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 25, 2014

Verified Purchase

An interesting true story well told. Though there were some strangenesses in my edition, like phrases repeated on two close pages with only slight changes in wording. And it was a bit inhuman of Winchester to say we should be grateful for the tragedy of the murdered and the murderer else the OED would have been less good. I'm not willing to sacrifice two lives for a dictionary...

James270

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2019

Verified Purchase

Excellent story and well researched and written. A must for lovers of history, fact and the English language.

Mr. Norman Bright

Great factual book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2021

Verified Purchase

Fantastic true storysuperbly written.

See all reviews

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