Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman

September 21, 1999

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W.C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

"The linguistic detective story of the decade." - William Safire

Simon Winchester is a writer and adventurer who has written for Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian, and National Geographic, and has had an award-winning thirty-year newspaper career. His books include The River at the Center of the World; The Sun Never Sets; Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles; Pacific Rising; Pacific Nightmare; and Prison Diary: Argentina. He lives in New York and London

Read a discussion between Simon Winchester and John Simpson on the book and the past, present, and future of the OED.

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