Customer Reviews
Delve into a world of polysyllabic sesquipedalianism - By: Ian David Curry, 22 Jan 2008 
The subject of the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary might seem to some as interesting as plowing through the subject text itself. Some might be more intrigued, the bibliophile, amateur lexicographer or philologist taking interest in the heritage of one of the greatest works in the English language. But those who are interested in biography or narrative history may discern a more exciting prospect. This is the story of two men, both central & devoted to the OED, & sharing as many similarities as they shared stark differences.
Some reviewers have commented that the story set out in this book would be dismissed as fantasy if it masqueraded as fiction. That it is a true story makes it quite remarkable. This is a tale from Victorian England in a world of European competition, supreme British confidence & `great' men. Just as the Victorians transformed & tamed their physical surroundings with majestic bridges, overbearing edifices & engineering feats they sought to do the same in the realm of learning. The Oxford English Dictionary was one of the high points of this academic adventure, deserving of greater recognition & understanding.
Winchester's book is an entertaining narrative of the dictionary's difficult gestation, birth & development. It is largely told through two protagonists (having pondered within the debate between the OED & Fowler's English Grammar on whether it was even possible to have plural protagonists) - the OED's long serving & dedicated editor, James Murray, & one of his keenest volunteers, William Minor.
And it is in Minor's story that the book finds its central intrigue. The surgeon of Crowthorne was indeed a surgeon, graduating from Yale & serving as a doctor in the US army of the civil war. And he was a resident of the Berkshire village of Crowthorne. But rather than occupying a manorial pile or a quaint, donnish cottage W. C. Minor was committed to Broadmoor, the secure hospital, or asylum, for the criminallly insane.
Winchester develops the story well, plunging into the pasts of the two men to discern both their intellectual powers & how they found themselves in very different, yet at times strangely similar, circumstances. This story is intriguing, a tale of genius, dedication, madness & monomania. But for me the real joy was the remaining central character, the dictionary itself. It is in the love of the words, of the precise, magisterial definitions & the history of dictionaries that Winchester's passion shines. He writes with a passionate verve that sees the enthusiasm leap from the page.
The pre-Oxford English Dictionary world of Samuel Johnson's dictionary, & a world of "anachronistic polysyllabic sesquipedalian", inkhorn terms designed to impress others is a ridiculous treat. The clergyman quoted writing from Lincolnshire begging for promotion as "sacerdotal dignity in my native country contiguate to me ... which your worshipful benignity could some inpenetrate for me" is a wonderful find.
If you find joy in the admittedly obsolete existence of abequitate, bubulcitate & comatrix (they mean, & I did have to look them up, to ride away, to cry like a cowherd & a joint womb) then I believe you will enjoy this book. A few annoying traits unfortunately dragged this great book from a full five star review. Winchester has a rather annoying tendency to repeat the facts he has mentioned in previous chapters. A couple of times I noticed the repetition of ideas that contradicts himself, & a couple of things, such as the wailing of Broadmoor sirens in the Victorian age - they were only operational from 1952, at points disappointed an otherwise fantastic read.
A criminally insane man and the Oxford English Dictionary - By: Linda Oskam, 12 Jun 2006 The Oxford English Dictionary is one of the largest & most encompassing dictionaries in the world. It took almost 70 years to complete & during those years thousands of volunteers scrutinized newspapers, journals & new & old books for new words, new meanings of words & sentences that would clarify the meanings. One of the most active volunteers was the American doctor William Chester Minor. During the 20 years that the doctor collaborated he developed a friendship with the editor, James Murray. When Murray decided to visit doctor Minor, he found that the latter served a lifetime sentence in the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminallly Insane after he had killed an innocent worker. The intellectual doctor Minor was found to be mad as a hatter: at night he heard voices, he claimed he was kidnapped, tortured & abused & under the floor of his cell there would live a bunch of Pygmees. The biographies of Murray, Minor & the Oxford English Dictionary are nicely interrelated in this well-written book.
Surprisingly interesting read - By: EFMOL, 16 Oct 2005 
A copy of this book was left behind by a previous holiday maker in an apartment I spent two weeks on holiday in Portugal this summer. I did not expect much from this book discarded by someone else with a less that exciting subject matter - the creation of the OED, but the "Tale of Murder........" caught my eye & I decided to give it a go.
While not exactly exhilarated by this read, I was not disappointed either. You will find the tale of W C Minor a fascinating one in itself - he was clearly a mad genius. What Winchester does to add more interest is to catalog his involvement in the creation of the OED.
For me, the real tale of the book is the dedication of OED Editor James Murray to the cause of the dictionary over most of his life. I can't think of a more boring job than editor of a dictionary - yet Winchester makes it sound like a blast!
Don't let the subject matter of the creation of the OED turn you off this book. It is an easy & enjoyable read.
Stranger than Fiction - By: Timothy De Ferrars, 08 Oct 2004 This book recounts a tale so improbable that as fiction it would have been hard to believe. Two Victorian lives become entwined. On the one hand, a great scholar who has bettered himself through learning, a man of towering reputation & influence; on the other, a millionaire madman whose delusional grip on reality has failed him & left him isolated in a lunatic asylum, a continent away from his family, with only his books for company.
Somehow their paths collide, & for years they work at a distance to create together the greatest reference book in the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary.
Eventuallly they meet, & their rapport blossoms into true friendship. A strange story unfolds, of gothic madness, violence, improbable love & eventual disintegration.
At times uplifting, at others rather muted, this book can at times be unevenly paced; but overalll it is a very rewarding read.
A Dictionary will never be the same again ………….. - By: Mr P R Morgan, 25 May 2004 This is a well-told tale that leads the audience through some of the politics involved in the production of the Oxford English Dictionary. The author has fictionalised the account at times through necessity, but made it clear that this is what he has done, in a story that combines murder most foul with the troubled life of the murdered.
The dictionary (“OED”) was a product of the Victorian ‘we can do anything’ optimism, & was undoubtedly a hugely ambitious project. The task would probably have been finished without the help of Dr William Chester Minor, a resident of a large country house in Berkshire (and better known as Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminallly Insane). However, the work was enormously advanced by the surgeon / murderer. Minor grasped the vast amount of work involved, & had the tiem & source material to contribute freely. He also had a wonderful method in his searching out quotations for the normal & abnormal use of words. His method enabled the editorial team, led by Dr James Murray, to request help from Minor & know thay would receive an enlightening & quality answer.
Minor died in 1920, back in his native America, more that 7 years before the completion of the OED. In the completed work there are 414835 words defined, & 1,827,306 illustrative quotations. Minor alone had contributed scores of thousands.
The English speaking world is indebted to the contributions of William Minor. We are also grateful to Simon Winchester for telling the tale with clarity & humour. Winchester also debunks the mythical account of the first meeting between Dr Murray & Minor. I got the feeling that the author liked the fabled account, even though he knew it not to be true (and clearly states that fact).
