Charlotte Brewer

Publishing house histories are often mind-numbingly turgid, based on corporate archives and filled with sales statistics and personnel changes. Perhaps because Dr Brewer's history is of the OED - largely since its original publication in 1928 - rather than the OUP, this book is anything but. It is as much the story of the role of the institution of the OED in how we view the English language as of its production. Yet Brewer's sources were administrative records and she doesn't stint on this side of the history. It is a testament to her own ability as a writer, then, that the book is such a page-turner.… (more)