Professor and The Madman, The

Rating:
Summary: interesting story
Review: This is a marvelous book about the Professor, James Murray, the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the Madman, Dr. William C. Minor, one of the Dictionary's most prolific contributors, despite his incarceration in an asylum for the criminally insane after committing a senseless murder provoked by his delusions. The book tells the stories of each of these protagonists as well as the making of the OED itself, and nicely wraps up all of the connections, even to the point of showing what happened to the murdered man's family (whose widow visited Minor regularly
for months).

Rating:
Summary: Insane? Brilliant? Yes, both.
Review: This modest title delivers far more than it promises.

It promises that the most profound, enduring artifacts of English language scholarship will be traced to the schock of war and to a man that it shattered. It promises that a small-town teacher would be elevated to the highest levels cultural authority. It promises dark secrets of broken minds and dusty secrets of doddering universities.

It delivers. Better yet, it delivers more.

The style is readable and compelling. I really wanted to turn each page. The narrative skips around, from the time of Shakespeare, to the founding of today's US, to the horrors of the US civil war. WWI notwithstanding, the US Civil War may represent the worst balance of weapons' destructive power vs. medicine's ability to make a broken soldier whole. Perhaps two among every three casualties on both sides succumbed to medieval medical care. Even within that, the most terrible slaughter in one battle of that most terrible war came from fire: the whole battlefield and the whole forest above it became an inferno. Men already dying from wounds tried desperately to avoid that worse death, and failed.

It just gets more grim after that, in ways that may well have shattered Dr. Minor's frail mind. Others suffered later, shot down in the street or orphaned. Somehow, all of that fell onto a man and fell into a time that could work towards a book. Not just any book, but The book of The English Language. However much we might value the OED today, we can never recreate the Victorian meaning of English as a tool of The Empire and of The Church - specifically, not the Roman church.

I've said too much. If you're still here, you're hooked.

Get it. Read it. I know too much about people too much like the book's. I really hope that you don't feel this book, but I do.

//wiredweird

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This was utterly absorbing to me. It's an entirely fascinating story of a highly interesting man, well written, well put together and carefully documented. I recommend it without reservation.

Rating:
Summary: An Intellectual Treat
Review: Winchester has the remarkable ability to turn a seemingly dull topic, such as the creation of the OED, into a compelling tale of lunacy and letters.

Having read the footnote in Jonathan Green's, Chasing the Sun, regarding the "American lunatic murderer who was imprisoned in Braodmore and became a prolific contributer to the OED," Winchester embarked on a esoteric research odyessy covering both England and the United States. What unfolded was a remarkable story of one man's insanity and another's passion for capturing the entire history of the English language on the printed page.

Dr. W.C. Minor, the "American lunatic" was a highly educated Civil War veteran suffering from schizophrenia. While living in England in an attempt to escape his ever-present feelings of persecution, he shot a man dead. Being obviously deluded, the British government sentenced him to an unspecified term in Broadmore lunatic asylum.

His counter-point, Professor James Murray, then editor of the OED, sent out a request for all men and women of letters to contribute definitions and quotations to the compilation of the dictionary. What unfolded was a relationship spanning over twenty years between The Professor and the Madman.

Winchester creates three distinct and affecting personalities, all of which compliment each outher beautifuly: Dr. Minor, Prof. Murray, and quite interestingly, the OED takes on an almost human quality. It is Winchester's skill at blending these three unique personalities and they become interlaced that keeps the reader turning the page. Indeed, a wonderful and absorbing book.





Rating:
Summary: The story behind the OED
Review: Winchester's thoroughly researched history of two of the most notable men involved in the making of the OED is a fascinating and scholarly work. It is a bit tangential at times; however, within this construct, the overall direction and meaning of the work is preserved.