The Professor and the Madman
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When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary put out a call during the late 19th century pleading for "men of letters" to provide help with their mammoth undertaking, hundreds of responses came forth. Some helpers, like Dr. W.C. Minor, provided literally thousands of entries to the editors. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a Civil War veteran, was actually a certified lunatic who turned in his dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Simon Winchester has produced a mesmerizing coda to the deeply troubled Minor's life, a life that in one sense began with the senseless murder of an innocent British brewery worker that the deluded Minor believed was an assassin sent by one of his numerous "enemies."
Winchester also paints a rich portrait of the OED's leading light, Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years of his life on a project he would not see completed in his lifetime. Winchester traces the origins of the drive to create a "Big Dictionary" down through Murray and far back into the past; the result is a fascinating compact history of the English language (albeit admittedly more interesting to linguistics enthusiasts than historians or true crime buffs). That Murray and Minor, whose lives took such wildly disparate turns yet were united in their fierce love of language, were able to view one another as peers and foster a warm friendship is just one of the delicately turned subplots of this compelling book. --Tjames Madison -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .
From Publishers Weekly
The Oxford English Dictionary used 1,827,306 quotations to help define its 414,825 words. Tens of thousands of those used in the first edition came from the erudite, moneyed American Civil War veteran Dr. W.C. Minor?all from a cell at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Vanity Fair contributor Winchester (River at the Center of the World) has told his story in an imaginative if somewhat superficial work of historical journalism. Sketching Minor's childhood as a missionary's son and his travails as a young field surgeon, Winchester speculates on what may have triggered the prodigious paranoia that led Minor to seek respite in England in 1871 and, once there, to kill an innocent man. Pronounced insane and confined at Broadmoor with his collection of rare books, Minor happened upon a call for OED volunteers in the early 1880s. Here on more solid ground, Winchester enthusiastically chronicles Minor's subsequent correspondence with editor Dr. J.A.H. Murray, who, as Winchester shows, understood that Minor's endless scavenging for the first or best uses of words became his saving raison d'etre, and looked out for the increasingly frail man's well-being. Winchester fills out the story with a well-researched mini-history of the OED, a wonderful demonstration of the lexicography of the word "art" and a sympathetic account of Victorian attitudes toward insanity. With his cheeky way with a tale ("It is a brave and foolhardy and desperate man who will perform an autopeotomy" he writes of Minor's self-mutilation), Winchester celebrates a gloomy life brightened by devotion to a quietly noble, nearly anonymous task. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Peter Matson. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .
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2 von 2 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
4.0 von 5 Sternen
This is an enthralling, well-written and touching book.,
Von
Rezension bezieht sich auf: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary (Gebundene Ausgabe)
"The Professor and the Madman" will not appeal to every reader. If you like lexicography, if you are interested in Victorian England, and if diseases of the mind fascinate you, then read this book. It is one of the strangest accounts that I have ever read. I devoured this book in one sitting. Winchester fascinates us with this story of the contribution that a convicted murderer named William Minor, who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane, made towards the gargantuan Oxford English Dictionary. This book is written sparely and elegantly. It could easily have been a bloated tome, but Winchester pares the story down to its essentials. The cliche that truth is stranger than fiction is certainly borne out by this tale of obsession. I use the word "obsession" both in the sense of the paranoia that plagued William Minor during most of his life and the obsession to create one of the most ambitious and scholarly works of all time. Winchester does an admirable job of making "The Professor and the Madman" both accessible and intriguing.
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4.0 von 5 Sternen
Sensationalized Version of a Gripping History,
Von Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - Alle meine Rezensionen ansehen (TOP 500 REZENSENT)
Rezension bezieht sich auf: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.) (Taschenbuch)
The Professor and the Madman is the yellow journalism version of the history of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Sir James Murray, Dr. William Chester Minor, the treatment of the criminally insane during the Victorian period. I was particularly offended by the overly graphic details of Dr. Minor's self-mutilation (if you don't have a strong stomach, skip that section) and playing up of the fictionalized (and often repeated as fact) version of how Sir James and Dr. Minor first met. If the story weren't so interesting, I would encourage you to avoid the book.Writing the first edition of the OED took 70 years and employed an unusual organizational method that has since become popular for monumental knowledge tasks -- relying on volunteers to do the bulk of the work of finding quotations that use each word in different ways over time. As someone who has always admired the OED, I enjoyed learning more about the process involved in its development. Unfortunately, that material is scattered throughout the book rather than concentrated where you can find it for a brief read through. The examples are good, however, if the material is needlessly diluted. Thinking about that monumental effort will give you just the right foundation for appreciating how mental illness can affect parts of one's faculties while leaving others undisturbed, as the paranoid Dr. Minor employed his extensive free time in the Broadmoor Asylum for Criminally Insane and personal wealth to become of the most organized and helpful contributors to the OED. Dr. Minor's story is the actual focus of the book. Unless you are quite interested in ironies, mental illness, and how the Victorians treated the criminally insane, you will probably find this book has more of Dr. Minor than you really care to know. It's a tragic story, but not one that I would have sought to read if the OED development process material hadn't been in the book. As background for that comment, you should know that I have a strong interest in criminal insanity and wrote my law school thesis on the subject. The book tells its story to make you feel the pain of being Dr. Minor quite well, but The Madman and the Professor won't advance your knowledge of mental illness or legal concepts of responsibility very much. I was attracted to this book in part due to my work in leading the 400 Year Project, seeking ways to make improvements in everyone's lives at 20 times the normal rate between 2015 and 2035. I came away impressed that just a few people can make a remarkable contribution to an all-but-impossible project. I will redouble my efforts to locate such people for the 400 Year Project. Tackle the impossible to find out what you can really do! Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen
5.0 von 5 Sternen
When you think you read it all something new pops up.,
Von bernie "xyzzy" (Arlington, Texas) - Alle meine Rezensionen ansehen
Rezension bezieht sich auf: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.) (Taschenbuch)
The book is well balanced between the history of the OED and the life and times of Dr. William Minor, (a major contributor).Simon Winchester can hold back all the good stuff and disperse it throughout his writing. So just when you think you read it all, some new fact or weird quirk shows up. Interspersed with the story are relevant definitions, as they would appear in the OED. His description of Broadmoor makes you want to sign up on the waiting list. Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen
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