Really engaging - you'd never think that the creation of the Oxford English dictionary would have such crazy history, but reads like a really great detective novel, even though it's completely factual. Couldn't put it down, amazed by what I learned from reading it.

The pretext for this book is rather slight – one of the significant volunteer contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary was, although an intelligent and educated man, also an inmate of an insane asylum, confined for a murder committed while in the throes of a schizophrenic paranoid delusion.
While, as a revelation, this fact may be less than earth-shattering, Winchester uses this story of the inmate, Dr. W.C. Minor, the man he killed, George Merrett, and the main editor of the OED, Dr. James Murray, as a vehicle for all kinds of interesting details – he goes on quite a number of tangents, but they’re always immensely well-written and fascinating! Winchester isn’t afraid to stray from dry, historical writing – he definitely makes guesses, fleshes things out for colorful effect – but his research is also obviously thoroughly done, and he also stops short of fictifying (ok, that’s not a word, but I think it should be) his topic – it’s always made clear when his scenarios are theoretical.
I’d highly recommend this book not only for those interested in dictionaries and lexicography, but for anyone interested in Victorian England, the Civil War, treatment of the mentally ill, or any of a number of other topics...

This is a great story if you like murder books that incorporate a lot of history of the peoriod and also combines two very diffrent stories into one. I loved that this book teaches you such interesting history and teaches you about the great undertaking of the compiling of the first edition of the Oxford dictionary. If you love language you will love the passion it shows towards it and the part a man in the hospital for the criminally insane played a large roll in the compiling of quotes.Not a breezy read but a good one.

An absolutely fascinating history mingling two stories: the making of the Oxford English Dictionary and one of its leading contributors, a brilliant, but insane American confined in a British asylum. Full of fascinating facts and quirky personalities, it reads more like a novel.

This short readable book tells the story of how two scholars worked to make the Oxford English Dictionary the towering monument to our native language that it is. The achievement of the OED is that it includes all word definitions and provides example quotations that would show how the word had changed through time. The work involved reading hundreds of old tomes to locate suitable quotations. James Murray was the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. William Chester Minor contributed thousands of word quotations despite the fact that he was an inmate in an asylum for the criminally insane. A story of greatness and sadness, of adversity and triumph, a must for people who like words and reading.

Who know that the OED went thru such strange yet fruitful birth pains? I had always wondered who did the first dictionary full length, and how. This book explained that and more. I thought the author did a fabulous jobportarying Dr. Minor. The author showed great compassion to the doctor. I would have liked to learn a bit more about Mr. Murray. The author makes reference to a book written about him by his grand daughter; too bad he couldn't add some of that info to this book.
All in all this is an engrossing read. The history of the stumbles, fits and starts in regareds to the dictionary gets a bit tedious, but after the first half the pacing is quite good.

You need to keep a dictionary close by with this one.

For such a fascinating story I thought the book would be less dry. Nonetheless, an interesting slice of history, irresistible for a dictionary junkie.

What a great story about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary! It's not a stuff tale of facts and data, but a light and breezy tale of two men who love language. Light and breezy? Yes, the use of language does not mire the reader in details, but actually enhances the experience. There is some history of mental health and evolution of it.

There once was a surgeon named Minor
Who became a prodigious definer
Though he had a large brain
He was also insane
Could the irony be any finer?

* * * * *

I really enjoyed this book it was, as I noted in my "in progress" review, quite the interdisciplinary social history.

Though the subject seems extremely dry (the development of the Oxford English Dictionary), when you think about it--the task of cataloging and defining EVERY SINGLE WORD in the English language--it becomes supremely mind-boggling.

In addition to the history of the dictionary, W.C. Minor--a U.S. citizen who had been confined in an insane asylum for murder--played a central and integral role.

And their intertwined stories (along with that of Dr. Murray the dictionary's editor) hung together in a fascinating way. My only fault with the book was at the end, where the author rather than dispassionately recounting the stories, begins to wax philosophical on the nature of insanity and the treatment of the insane.

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A pretty quick read, but a very interesting story about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. The story centers on two men -- one who is charged with organizing the making of the dictionary, and another who contributes greatly to it from his home at a mental institution for the criminally insane. I found the story of the making of the dictionary, which I realized I knew almost nothing about, at least as interesting as the story of the two men at the center of the story. Well-researched, well-written, and worth a read.

One of my favorites - riveting reading, suspenseful, and historically interesting too.

I just loved this story. Only a person with very little else to do, could have made the kind of contribution this man did. The nerd in me just loved his methodology for finding "words used in a sentance."... Highly recommend!

This is a terrific read. There are a class of nonfiction books lately that take one thing and examine it down to a level that would never occur to you would be interesting - Cod, Salt, Longitude - but they really, really are. And this similar class of an unexamined, strange, fascinating twist in history.

The madman is an American physician who served on the bloody battlefronts of the American Civil War, then moved to England, where apparently he went mad, and killed a man. Confined to prison for the rest of his life, he got it in his head to answer an ad in the paper to contribute words, definitions, and examples of usage to the new comprehensive dictionary that would, in the end, take decades to complete: The Oxford English Dictionary. This madman became, over the years, the single most prolific contributor to the project. His samples of usage are still in the Oxford.

Even stranger, the editor of the dictionary did not know his most valued contributor was a madman and murderer confined to prison for life -- it was only many years later, when he went to visit his contributor that he found out.

Very well written, the right length, well paced, and very interesting. Highly recommended. (This same author's other nonfiction books are equally interesting!)

Thought this book would be an good read from the cover but I was disappointed. Although the story itself is interesting I found the book dull and not well put together. Also, The writer has a tendency to input his own subjective analyses on the personalities of the characters which gets pretty annoying. This could have been a good story in the hands of a better writer.

This is a fascinating glimpse into a small piece of history. The _Oxford English Dictionary_ took 70 years and legions of workers to research and complete. One of them, Dr. William Chester Minor, was a schizophrenic murderer confined in a hospital for the criminally insane in London. His prodigious and meticulous scholarship for over 20 years from his prison cell was important to the development of the OED.

If you are interested in words, in dictionaries, or in 19th century medical and legal procedures for people clearly and incurably "mad," this book is a must read.

Interesting tale that serves as the backdrop of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Loved this book.

Very interesting and readable - I really enjoyed it.

This is a facinating read about how the dictionary was created. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!

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