
The Professor and the Madman
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Narrated by:
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Simon Jones
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By:
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Simon Winchester
A New York Times Notable Book
The Professor and the Madman 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 making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than 10,000. But their surprise would pale in comparison to what they were about to discover when the committee insisted on honoring him. For Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
Masterfully researched and eloquently written, The Professor and the Madman "is the linguistic detective story of the decade." (William Safire, New York Times Magazine)
(P) and ©1998 HarperCollins Publishers Inc., All Rights Reserved, Harper Audio, A Division of HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
- Audio Publishers Association 1999 Award Winner, Nonfiction, Abridged
"Madness, violence, arcane obsessions, weird learning, ghastly comedy �" (Literary Review)
"An extraordinary tale...a splendid book." (The Economist)
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This is the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, a feat that spanned more than half a century, and of two distinct personalities who were the driving force and major contributor to the project, respectively. In this is fascinating and extremely well done presentation, the "madman"--an American medical doctor and Civil War veteran who suffered from an extreme form of paranoia and wound up in Broadmoor, the British institution for the criminally insane--is naturally enough the more intense and interesting of the two title characters.
A third major "character" is the dictionary itself, a vibrant and ever-changing force throughout the English-speaking world and a supreme legacy of all the men described here. I suspect that the OED is the character given short shrift in this abridgment, and that the full version of WInchester's book contains much more detail on lexicography and printing.
Interesting story well presented
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Great Listen!
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Enjoyed it
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The Professor and the Madman
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the biography of a dictionary
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Interesting
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It gives bit of a life story of Minor, and tells how he came to be locked up in an asylum. It also gives some information about the history of English dictionaries, and about the process by which the OED was compiled.
Minor, obviously bored living in isolation, and besides his madness very intelligent, took to indexing and providing quotations of the words in all his books. As the dicitonary team progress through the alphabet, Minor would ask which words they were working on, and look up in his home made rolodex, the book titles and page numbers in his vast collection of books, then copy out the required quotations and send them to the dictionary team for inclusion.
He is said to have been one of the most prolific contributors. There's nothing particularly exciting in this audio book, but it is a fascinating historical story.
Great Book
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Simon Jones as usual, excellent. Why did he not read the unabridged version?
History is funny
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Wasted Credit
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