The Professor and the Madman
Simon Winchester
The Professor and the Madman is the story of the Oxford English Dictionary and two of the people who were responsible for it. The Professor was James Augustus Henry Murray, the man who became “for the last forty years of his life its greatest and most justly famous editor.” The Madman was Dr. William Chester Minor, the admitted and insane American Murderer. He was a surgeon in the Union Army in the Civil War and either or both of two incidents may have triggered his insanity. He murdered a man in England and spent most of the rest of his life in an insane asylum not far from London, yet contributed hugely to the Oxford English Dictionary. I have found it to be a fascinating story, although the last quarter of the book, which deals with Dr. Minor’s last years and the nature of his ailment is less so.