The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Winchester's book on a minor story in the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (published in the UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne) is a strong example of the pleasant diversion to be found in popular intellectual history. That an American military officer & surgeon (Minor) would end up contributing many thousand definitions to the OED under its founding editor (Murray) is interesting enough, given the national --even imperial-- motivations behind the dictionary; still better that Minor was institutionalised and his behavioural health was, in fact, key to his role as contributor.

Winchester provides interesting sketches of London including Lambeth Marsh, Bedlam, and its successor Crowthorne; the origins of dictionaries; U.S. Civil War show more battlefield medicine; and an infectious enthusiasm for the OED itself. Within the space of two pages, the reader is treated to the real life inspiration for George Bernard Shaw's Henry Huggins and Kenneth Grahame's Water Rat, and after treating of several known personalities Winchester ends with the bit part played by Winston Churchill. Lexicography and the specific history of the OED are peppered throughout.

Interestingly, in the American edition at least there are line drawings provided by Philip Hood. While they cannot be considered necessary to the text, they highlight the atmospheric nature of the work, employing a style suited to Dickens.

A very pleasant palate cleanser between more demanding books. show less

If you aren't familiar with Simon Winchester--and shame on you if you aren't--he is, at least to me, one of the pre-eminent writers of literary nonfiction publishing today. Because his focus is on historical events, his works have no surprise endings--and that is fine, because the pleasure of a Winchester book is in the journey, not the destination. In this instance, he carefully crafts the story of how the first Oxford English Dictionary (or OED, for those who use it) came to be through an extraordinary literary relationship between two men who had nothing in common but a passion for the English language. I think of his tale like a drawing of a ladder--two parallel lines that never intersect but are connected via perpendicular line show more segments. In this case the lines are Sir James Murray, the original editor of the OED, and Dr. William Chester Minor, and American physician who was serving a life sentence in a British prison; the rungs are the letters that passed between the two as Murray built his tome and Minor contributed vast amounts of material to it. Anyone who has a love of language--especially the English one--will find this book a journey will taken. show less

I can tell when a book is a true masterpiece because when people ask what I'm reading I feel compelled to provide not just a title but also sentences like: "Did you know that the very first dictionary wasn't until the 1750's?" and "Did you know that the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary predated words like 'typewriter' and 'schizophrenia'?" and "The OED was published in installments like a Dickens novel, taking over 40 years to publish?"

The story is just fascinating. From the very beginning -- the question of how and why to make a dictionary. Like many of the standardizations that begun in the 16th and 17th century, the idea that words should have standard spellings and meanings is pretty intuitive once you've thought of show more it, but requires an almost unimaginable amount of work. It's hard from this side of the google revolution to imagine how one even conceives of doing this much work. The group asked volunteers to read books from specified centuries, note down the words they found, the sentence it was in and send it in with citations. It was the complaints of poor handwriting and water damage that really hit home to me the intense work required in this plan. These scrips of paper were then sorted by the few OED editorial employees, selected, and set to the printing press(!) I was equally fascinated that a dictionary came so late in human history and that they managed to have a comprehensive dictionary so early.

Winchester intends for this to also be the story of Dr. Minor, who was one of the most important volunteer contributors, from where he sat incarcerated in an insane asylum, diagnosed with "monomacy" for his paranoid delusions. I found the story of a learned doctor, insane, but with preserved cognitive function, obsessively cultivating entries for the OED fascinating, but the story definitely lost steam when it deviated from being about the OED. In particular, the chapters of Dr. Minor's backstory and the chapter of Dr. Minor's dotage dragged. But overall, the story was fascinating and I learned a lot from this slim and readable book. show less

In The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester examines the parallel lives of Sir James Murray, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, and Dr. William Chester Minor, late of the U.S. Army; the titular “professor” and “madman.” Dr. Minor, having suffered from mental illness possibly exacerbated by his Civil War experience (p. 60-61), was certified a “criminal lunatic” (p. 21) and housed in the Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Broadmoor, a new facility determined to provide a more humane housing than Bedlam in London. Winchester notes that the story he unfolds has “two protagonists” in the form of Dr. Minor and Professor Murray, even show more as academics debated the plurality of the term “protagonist” while the OED was in construction (p. 28, 31). He argues, “Murray. The lives of the two men [Murray and Minor] were over the years to become inextricably and most curiously entwined” (p. 31).

Winchester links Minor’s illness, as did contemporary writers, to the Battle of the Wilderness. He writes, “It was a fight to test the sanest of men: Some of the occurrences of those two days were utterly beyond human imagination” (p. 53). Deserters faced the harshest of punishment and regulations often required surgeons to perform the task. Winchester relates, “An Irish deserter, who had been convicted at drumhead of running away during the terrors of the Wilderness, was sentenced to be branded. The officers of the court – there would have been a colonel, four captains, and three lieutenants – demanded in this case that the new young acting assistant surgeon who had been assigned to them, this fresh-faced and genteel-looking aristocrat, this Yalie, fresh down from the hills of New England, be instructed to carry out the punishment. It would be as good a way as any, the old war-weary officers implied, to induct Doctor Minor into the rigors of war. And so the Irishman was brought to him, his arms shackled behind his back” (p. 60). Following this, Minor faced transfer to a billet on Governor’s Island and faced a new generation of Irish immigrants, experiencing great guilt in their presence (p. 67). All of this culminated in his delusion that Irishmen were haunting him in his nocturnal hours. This delusion provoked Minor to murder.

While in Her Majesty’s custody, Minor benefitted from his background as an educated member of a wealthy family with a reliable U.S. Army pension. He “furnished his cells comfortably – much, indeed, as a member of the Athenaeum might” (p. 122) and brought both his books from New Haven as well as new volumes from London bookstores in addition to his paints, wines, flute, and more. Crucially, Minor reached out to his victim’s widow to make amends. Eventually, he and Eliza Merrett communicated and she brought him new books, introducing Minor to the Oxford English Dictionary project requesting readers (p. 127). The project was proceeding with great difficulties as prior dictionaries only focused on unique words. Professor Murray repeatedly admonished readers that they “must find and note all and any words that seemed interesting, or that were quoted in interesting and signifying ways or in ways that were good, apt, or pithy” (p. 137). Amid this, Minor “was maverick enough, original-minded enough, however, to realize that he could do better than simply follow Murray’s orders to the letter. Given his peculiar position, his leisure, his library, he could do more, do otherwise. It took hm some days of pondering exactly how he might best serve the project; but after some weeks of thinking he came up with what he thought was the best way to tackle the task” (p. 138). Even with Minor’s contributions, the project may have failed. Murray worked tirelessly with the Delegates of the Press at Oxford University to ensure the project’s success.

Winchester writes, “there was one sustaining fact: The first of the fascicles, the revenue-producing installments into which Oxford insisted that the dictionary be divided, had at last been published, on January 29, 1884. Nearly five years had elapsed since James Murray had been appointed editor. Twenty-seven years had passed since Richard Chenevix Trench had given his famous address in which he called for a new English dictionary. Now, in a muddy off-white cover and with its sheets half uncut, was the first part, 352 pages worth of all the known English words from A to Ant, published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, at a price of twelve shillings and sixpence. Here, at last, was the first morsel of substance: part one of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society, edited by James A. H. Murray, LID., Sometime President of the Philological Society, with the Assistance of Many Scholars and Men of Science” (p. 147). The work eventually took Doctor Murray and his family to the Scriptorium in Oxford in order to house his and his volunteers’ work (p. 149). Even amid the project’s success, it was years before Murray and Minor finally met in person (p. 155).

Eventually, the connection between Dr. Minor and the OED reached the presses, spreading as far as Tianjin, China (p. 172). While Dr. Minor rose to more public acclaim, his mental illness worsened and he found himself subject to the restrictions of Dr. Brayn, including the affair of a loss of a painting intended for the Princess of Wales (p. 197) and the loss of his library. Fortunately and humanely, Winston Churchill intervened to secure Minor’s parole to America for his final years amid his decline (p. 199).

Winchester argues of Minor, “if he had been so treated, he might never have felt impelled to work on it as he did. By offering him mood-altering sedatives, as they would have done in Edwardian times, or treating him as today with such antipsychotic drugs as quetiapine or risperidone, many of his symptoms of madness might have gone away – but he might well have felt disinclined or unable to perform his work for Doctor Murray. In a sense doing all those dictionary slips was his medication; in a way they became his therapy. The routine of his quiet and cellbound intellectual stimulus, month upon month, year upon year, appears to have provided him with at least a measure of release from his paranoia. His sad situation onlv worsened when that stimulus was gone” (p. 214).

In his conclusion, Winchester moves to New Years Eve, 1927. He writes, “The New York Times put the fact on the front page the next morning, a Sunday – that with the inclusion of the Old Kentish word zyzt – the second indicative present tense, in local argot, of the verb to see – the work was done, the alphabet was exhausted, and the full text was now wholly in the printers’ hands. The making of the great book, declared the newspaper roundly and generously, was ‘one of the great romances of English literature’” (p. 219). In this, his narrative helps the reader to better see how this great project incorporated so much of the English-speaking world in a testament to their language. Even with its lapse of the word “bondmaid” (p. 220), the connection between Drs. Minor and Murray encapsulates the unique conditions that fostered the creation of a work so many take for granted. Thus, Winchester’s work evoke s Erik Larson in his dramatization of history and his unpacking of a particular story that deepens our understanding of that history. show less

A tale of murder, madness and The Oxford English Dictionary: such is the full title of Simon Winchester’s intriguingly titled ‘The Surgeon of Crowthorne’, a book all about, well, murder, madness and the OED, though there’s more on the latter than the former.

What’s it about?

Lexicographer James Murray is attempting to compile the first OED, a vast undertaking that eventually consumes 70 years and is not completed until 12 years after his death. During this struggle, Murray communicates extensively with many keen contributors, but builds a particular friendship with one: Dr William Minor of Crowthorne. As well as being a star contributor to the important dictionary, Minor is a lunatic, consigned to stay indefinitely at Broodmoor show more lunatic asylum after committing a murder.

This is a book partly about their friendship, partly about that murder, but mostly about the making of the mighty OED.

What’s it like?

Detailed, thoughtful and written in such a way that you are drawn into Minor’s affairs with a sympathetic eye.

It’s slow-going as the book has multiple beginnings: an extract from a call for contributors to the dictionary is followed by a preface; the preface briefly outlines the mythology surrounding Murray and Minor’s first meeting and implies this book will offer revelations regarding the truth of that meeting; this is followed by a chapter detailing the life and murder of George Merrett, which of course introduces Minor; this is followed by a chapter outlining James Murray’s early life and the beginning of his involvement with the dictimary; THIS is followed by the murderer’s relevant history until that point; then there is a chapter outlining the very beginnings of the concept of the new dictionary. In short, nearly 90 pages have passed before the story truly gathers steam as some of the key participants (Murray and the dictionary) properly come together.

Such length is not simply the result of having to introduce various characters – including a book! – but is rather due to Winchester’s delight in minor details and speculation. He writes that Minor ‘selected a pen with the very finest nib’ to send his first words to the dictionary. Perhaps. Even probably. And perhaps not. More importantly, he suggests that the view from Minor’s suite at Broodmoor must have meant Minor’s sentence ‘cannot have seemed altogether a nightmare’. Hmm. I’m not sure a good view, even an excellent view, would detract one’s attention too much from the horror of being committed indefinitely to a lunatic asylum in a foreign country. Still, such intimate touches help to bring the characters and the events to life, making potentially very dry material more engaging, though they do sometimes lend the writing a slightly fictional air.

Perhaps appropriately, the ending is also a drawn-out affair with a chapter called ‘Then Only The Monuments’, which is primarily concerned with the deaths of the major characters, followed by a postscript, followed by an author’s note, followed by suggestions for further reading. This, then, is a leisurely read, one which will reward readers with the time and patience to piece together all the relevant details in their minds.

Final thoughts

I had never realised dictionaries took so long to write and found the details Winchester included about the methods used were generally interesting, though I skimmed some of the biographical bits (I don’t much care where Minor or Murray grew up or how many siblings they had) and felt there were more examples of definitions than I particularly cared for. (It seems I am not a lexicographer at heart.)

This will be of most interest to those with a love of words and a love of history, though there is also some interesting discussion about Minor’s illness, finally revealed to be what we would now call schizophrenia. Towards the end of the book in particular Winchester discusses Minor’s illness in broader terms than in the preceding chapters, considering what triggers such mental disorders as schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, and how they might be treated differently today.

Overall it’s a pleasant meander through a bit of literary history, replete with imaginative embroiderings at the edges. show less

Who knew a book about the assembling of a dictionary could be so fascinating? This book provides biographies of two men who played key roles in the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Professor James Murray, the chief editor, and Dr. W.C. Minor, the “madman” of the title. It also covers the process used in the monumental task of assembling the OED, which comprised “twelve mighty volumes; 414,825 words defined; 1,827,306 illustrative quotations” and took over 70 years.

The book hinges on the intriguing, but tragic, life of Dr. Minor, whose insanity had led to murder. I found myself pondering the nature of mental illnesses, and how far we still must go to truly understand and treat them. I thought Winchester did an show more excellent job of weaving the history of dictionaries together with the biographies to deliver an engrossing story. My only quibbles were that the author took quite a few liberties in surmising what people were feeling and twice included a sensational, but admittedly false, vignette.

The book was filled with intriguing observations. For example, I had never previously considered what it would have been like not to have access to a dictionary, but the author points out that William Shakespeare did not. How remarkable that he could create such works without one!

Recommended to those who love words, the history of words, books about books, and biographies. show less

“Samuel Johnson, the Great Cham” and “fascicles” to boot! For me to recommend a book as “good,” i.e., worth the hours out of my finite lifespan it takes to read it, I must learn something new from it, and that learning must be pleasurable. While I knew, at least in fairly general terms, of Samuel Johnson, entitling him “The Great Cham” was not only new to my poor excuse for knowledge but was also frustrating, for Simon Winchester never explains exactly what the title means. As for the word “fascicle,” well, that one had thoroughly avoided ever becoming part of my recognition vocabulary. Learning about Samuel Johnson's title took a fair bit of Internet searching, but the challenge finally yielded to my persistence. show more “Fascicle,” of course, was a quick look-up. I shall likely never use either expression, but I was intrigued by both.

Perchance of somewhat greater significance, Winchester's The Professor and the Madman reveals the fascinating methodology behind the creation of what is arguably the greatest English language dictionary in existence—it is certainly the largest! While I was quite familiar with the Oxford English Dictionary, better know by its initials of OED, I never knew the “back story” of how it was created. Now I do! Moreover, I also learned some new (to me anyway) facts about the Battle of the Wilderness during the American Civil War. Thanks to what it has taught me, I hereby dub Winchester's book to be “Good.”

But what about the professor and the madman? What we have is an American doctor of medicine who was assigned to the Union forces during the Civil War and who witnessed horrendous carnage. Whether or not that was a contributing factor, the good doctor, now in England, experiences progressively threatening hallucinations and, in his insanity, murders an innocent London workingman, for which act he is confined to an asylum for the criminally insane. While there, he becomes aware of an advertisement for volunteers to read widely in the search for the uses of English words. Having, and being allowed to keep in the asylum, a prodigious collection of old and rare books, and being apparently quite sane as far as reading and comprehending language are concerned, the doctor's offer to contribute to the amassing of quotations for the OED is accepted, although the editor (the Professor in the book title) is unaware of the doctor's situation as an asylum inmate. The two men, one free and one confined, eventually do meet and become friends as well as professional colleagues in the creation of the great dictionary.

Inasmuch as the foregoing paragraph summarizes the thrust of The Professor and the Madman, I do entertain a little doubt as to whether the subject warrants 221 pages. Perhaps Winchester, or his publisher, felt the same because, in my softbound 2005 edition at least, he appended a postscript, an author's note, acknowledgements, suggestions for further reading, an “about the author” biography, a “favorite words” section, and several advertisements for his other books, all of which add 36 additional pages. I hasten to add that much of this additional material is interestingly written and rather fun to read, so this observation is not necessarily a negative one.

Despite my feeling that the book may be “making a mountain out of a mole hill,” so far as the significance of its topic is concerned, it is an entertaining, fast read, and it does convey a fair amount of historical information that everyone with an interest in the English language, and particularly in the creation of dictionaries, should possess. I most assuredly do not begrudge the time I spent reading it.

As for “The Great Cham” and “fascicle,” I wrestled with the thought of defining them in this review, but I had so much fun researching them that I felt it would do any readers a disservice by depriving them of a similar experience! show less