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
About this listen
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)
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In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records.
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Discovery and Translation of Linear B Script
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The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful and surprisingly true story of how a series of articles in the Sun newspaper in 1835 convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. Purporting to reveal discoveries of a famous British astronomer, the series described such moon life as unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and four-foot-tall flying man-bats. It quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era.
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From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of 41, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge.
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Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.
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By the time he was 30, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, and become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment.
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The narration problem can be corrected
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Buy the Book
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In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
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What listeners say about The Professor and the Madman
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Vida Winter
- 10-29-19
I wanted more
I really liked this book, I just wish there was more of it. this felt more like an extended ted talk than a full book
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Overall
- Michael O'Brien
- 11-16-06
Enjoyed it
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. First and foremost, I am glad that I chose the abridged version. While I found the topic interesting (if only for the fact that I never really thought about it before), I don't think that I could have been drawn in as completely and consistently for a longer duration. Whether this stems from the topic itself or the fact that I have been listening to many unabridged works lately and just needed a break, I can't be sure. I can say that the book was well-narrated and kept a lively and interesting pace throughout.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Carol
- 05-05-11
Interesting story well presented
Like most Audible readers, I don't normally "go for" abridged books, but in this case I was glad I did, spurred on by the fact that Simon Jones is my all-time favorite narrator.
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.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Gabrielle
- 08-20-11
Great Listen!
This story seemed too unbelievable to be true. Very interesting that this story is a piece of history yet no one has every known it. Great Purchase
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Christopher O Baldwin
- 03-17-04
The Professor and the Madman
Great Book. It was so well crafted; despite it's length relative to it's topic, it held my interest thruout the 'book'. My first listen & my favorite.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Trudy Owens
- 12-22-18
the biography of a dictionary
How interesting can the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary be? Well, in this case, immensely! It is extremely sad that true mental illness brought on by PTSD made one of the protagonists so fascinating, but there you go. Misters Winchester and Jones did a great job bringing to evanescent life a tale that could have been merely mildly interesting, while casually tossing out three or four sesquipedalian words you will have to dig out your OED for!
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- Julie
- 07-14-23
Interesting
Outstanding historical rendering of the achievements of Dr. William Chester Minor and his dedication to developing the oxford English dictionary.
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Overall
- Z
- 11-27-05
Great Book
This is a great book. It tells the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. The story centres around two characters primarily, Minor (the madman) and Murray(the professor).
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.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Andre J.
- 11-08-16
History is funny
Interesting story to about the contributions of complicated persons who society tags as useless. I bought this book referred by a podcast about a person who was incarcerated and barely illiterate, who taught himself to read better and contributed in the same way to editing the encyclopedia. Editor corresponded with him while incarcerated, never met him while he was inside. Lobbied the warden when they took away books. Provided the inmate with a job after release.
Simon Jones as usual, excellent. Why did he not read the unabridged version?
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sharlotte
- 07-22-16
Wasted Credit
Dry, and uninteresting, save the last 10 minutes. I was very disappointed. This could've been great (possibly???) given another author and narrator.
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1 person found this helpful