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

As a completely fledged bibliopsychotic and an ever-striving-to-be cunning-linguist , I was all aquiver with anticipation to bury my face in this purported history of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Alas, despite being well-written and thoroughly researched, I'm having to fake it a bit to give this a full 3 stars.

My primary joy-dampening problem with the book's arrangement was the dearth of page time given to what I see as the most fascinating aspect of the story…the actual nuts and bolts of putting together the OED and the history of etymological word-cataloging. Unfortunately, this element only makes up about 20% to 25% of the book with the majority devoted to the life stories of Professor James Murray, head of the OED project, and Dr. W.C. Minor, a criminally insane murderer. This was a disappointing use of subject matter allocation.

Most of the biographical portion is devoted to Dr. Minor who, admittedly, was a fascinating character with a colorful history. The author traces the madman's early career as an Army surgeon during the Civil War, an experience that appears to have been the genesis of his growing dementia. We are given insight into Minor's abby normal sexual appetites and his irrational, all-consuming fear of Irishmen. This potent combination leads eventually to "the crime" that earned him a permanent residency at Broadmoor Hospital (aka lunatic asylum).

As interesting as this material was, I would have much preferred a more cliff notey segment on Minor to make room for a more expansive discussion of the "highlights" below. Granted, when Dr. Minor coolly and methodically lops off his own penis as a self-help remedy to combat the "demons" causing his bizarre sexual urges…I was glued like Elmer's to the page. I was also wincing and reading with one hand while the other one was guarding my goodies.

BTW...the man never even screamed while he removed his appendage. I screamed reading about it. The guy was a whole bowl of grape-nuts.

As for Professor Murray, I found the portions dealing with him to be tedious and dry. I could have done without them completely so his appearance has been edited from this review.

Still, there is some real gold in the book. Even with the relatively scant attention paid to the actual production of the OED, there were a handful of highlights that make this book well worth perusing.

HIGHLIGHTS:

** The history of word collection, origins and philological research into first usage was nothing short of "warm butter on hot bread" awesome and I gobbled up every second of it. Please give me a full book on this someday…squeeeeee. These discussions about the research methods and the comprehensive aspect of the undertaken begun in 1857 on the OED was mind-boggling. I also particularly enjoyed the distinctions drawn between the heterogeneous linguistic "melting pot" that is the English language and the relatively homogenous, strictly pure bred French language.

** There was one genuine "light bulb" moment of illumination discussed by the author that really left me floored with mouth agape. While giving a run down on the origin of the first dictionary, Winchester discusses the fact that Shakespeare, with his amazingly diverse vocabulary, was able to write such works with no centralized catalog of words allowing him to confirm their proper usage. This...was...staggering...to...me and was easily the most valuable insight I took away from this read.

I live inside my dictionary (both Urban and Oxford) and my thesaurus and can't imagine the mastery of language that necessary to create works like Shakespeare's catalog without a linguistic safety net. That revelation alone was worth the price of the book for me and further elevated my profound respect for the masterful word-smiths of antiquity.

** The discussion of the cooperative process of compiling the OED and the monumental undertaking that such creating the OED was fascinating. Tens of thousands of amateur philologists researching and sending Murray's team slips with words and brief histories of their origin, which were then compiled and processed by the Oxford committee. This was terrific stuff.

I would have loved much more on the 3 items above. Still, the story is well written and I think the author's regard for the subject matter comes through in the prose. Thus, despite my tarnished expectations, I am going to give the doubt's benefit to the book and award it 3 stars because it's one I would recommend so long as you go into it knowing that you will get heavy doses of Murray and Minor and only a light serving of etymology.

3.0 stars. Recommended (with caveats).