History makes for novel story

The Professor and the Madman

Knopf

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Many University students are familiar with the Oxford English Dictionary, known to its buddies as the OED. Mostly, students' familiarity is in the context of English professors urging them - at the risk of attracting snickers - to check out some obscure tidbit from their reading in the OED, to be better prepared for discussion.

Based on this experience, you would not think a serious work of nonfiction on the history of the OED's composition would qualify as a gripping tale, except to the extent that the reader's upper and lower eyelids would feel the urge to grip each other. What a surprising act of literary legerdemain that Simon Winchester has pulled off, then, in "The Professor and the Madman," his absolutely fascinating behind-the-dust-jacket peek at the OED.

Yes, certainly the OED is one of the great works of literary scholarship of all time - the ultimate reference resource in the universe - but who knew it also concealed a seamy background of murder, insanity, military brutality and prostitution?

The meat-and-potatoes of this book is the relationship between two men. The first is Prof. James Murray, the longest-tenured and most famous editor of the OED, a Scotsman of considerable genius who oversaw four decades worth of the OED's construction (a process that, on the way to compiling and tracing the origins of about half a million words, took almost 70 years).

The second is American army surgeon Dr. William Chester Minor, Ret. He is one of the most prolific contributors to the dictionary for, from his home in rural England, he mailed Murray scads of definitions that wound up in the dictionary.

Despite this, and despite a considerable personal correspondence the two men carried on, they did not meet for more then 20 years. Murray was hesitant to leave his duties editing the dictionary in Oxford, and Minor was never able to visit him. The reason, as well as the explanation for Minor's impressive use of his free time, is disclosed in the first few pages of the book. Minor was a convicted murderer and inmate of Broadmoor Asylum for the Insane.

Thankfully, Winchester makes a story of great natural interest even more interesting with his style of presentation. If textbook writers wrote history like this, our campus would be graced by more crowded lecture halls and more impressive transcripts. Winchester paints across a broad canvas that takes the reader from Virginia battlefields to the beaches of Sri Lanka, stopping many more places in between.

The scholarship of the book is impressive, and Winchester consistently explains his material so completely and clearly that the factual basis for his conclusions is beyond reproach.

The rare gaps he is forced to fill with speculation are handled smoothly.

Best of all, he never sinks into jargony attempts to sound intellectual, nor does he wallpaper the reader with footnotes.

Winchester writes a history book so as to attach the reader to the story until the end.

What a novel idea.

- Jeff Druchniak

11-12-98