This month we’re reading The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. In 1857, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Prof. James Murray called upon the public to submit illustrative quotations for word definitions. One of his most prolific contributors was an American Civil War surgeon, Dr. William Chester Minor. Minor submitted thousands of entries over twenty years. Murray repeatedly tried to meet with him at Minor’s home in Crowthorne, 50 miles from Oxford, but Minor always declined. Finally, Murray traveled to Crowthorne and found that Minor was incarcerated for murder at Broadmoor, England’s most notorious criminal lunatic asylum. Winchester’s incisive work paints a fascinating tale of lexicography, and a man’s descent into madness, clinging to his remaining sanity through his work with the OED. Please pick up a copy at the main desk, and join us on Thursday, August 16th at 7PM for our discussion.
