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An extraordinary tale from the annals of our Mother Tongue a book review

by Roxanna Cain

The Professor and the Madman By Simon Winchester Harper Collins 1998

I usually offer reviews of recently published works, following The News' policy on such things. But this book is worth the exception.

The story is extraordinary.

It is the real-life story of the two men who were principally responsible for the creation, during the nineteenth century, of the Oxford English Dictionary, which is regarded still as the highest authority on the English language in the world.

Years and decades went by as fascicles of the dictionary were published that contained the letters A-C and P-Q. But Oxford University in England was behind this project and supported it as well as its editor, James Murray.

This was not the first time that an English dictionary was published. But earlier efforts had seemed incomplete. So, in an innovative approach to tackle the gargantuan task set before him by Englands Philological Society and the University, Murray issued a nationwide and overseas call for volunteers, who were asked to read the outstanding works of English literature, find words of interest, and mail to the editor paper slips on which the volunteer would note the word, along with several quotes that would exemplify how the word was used both historically and in different contexts. Murray then took upon himself and his editorial assistants the job of organizing this material into relevant, intelligent system of definitions and quotations that would help readers to understand the meaning or meanings of each word, with examples. Quotes came from Shakespeare, Chaucer, Browning, Yeats, and hundred of other writers and poets.

One of these anonymous volunteers was a Dr. W.C. Minor, of Broadmoor, Crowthorne, England. The intelligence of his contributions, and the sheer volume of them, aroused the curiosity of Dr. Murray. Years of correspondence had crossed between the two gentlemen, but much was never revealed about the kind doctor. It is only after an incident during an awards ceremony when Dr. Murray decides it is time to meet the elusive Dr. Minor. He requests permission to visit him at his residence in Broodmoor, and Dr. Murray is welcomed to come.

To his surprise, as he arrives at the indicated address, he realizes that he has been brought to the famous Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane. And that Dr. Minor is an inmate here; locked up for more than thirty years for having murdered a man during a lunatic rage.

No wonder he had had so much time to read and write his dictionary quotations!

Was he violent? Was he there unjustly? Was he in fact insane as they claimed? All these questions and more make up this fascinating account of mystery, intellectual endeavor, loneliness, and Victorian mores as friendship develops between these two so different and yet so similar men.

The Oxford English Dictionary took 70 years to complete in its final form of twelve volumes containing an astounding 414,825 word definitions. "Other dictionaries in other languages took longer to make; but none was greater, grander, or had more authority thank this. The greatest effort since the invention of printing," the author proclaims. And the story of doctors Murray and Minor is paramount in that creation.

(Simon Winchester is the author of the recently published The Map that Changed the World.)

5 stars