The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary - Hardcover

"A brisk, gracefully executed work of popular intellectual history, a model of its kind."--Washington Post

"An extraordinary tale, and Simon Winchester could not have told it better. . . . [He] has written a splendid book."--The Economist

"Elegant and scrupulous."--David Walton, New York Times Book Review

"There is much truth to be drawn [from The Professor and the Madman] about Victorian pride, the relation between language and the world, and the fine line between sanity and madness."--Wall Street Journal

"Winchester combines a reporter's eye for detail with a historian's sense of scale. His writing is droll and eloquent."--USA Today

"One of the great strengths of this book is historical mise-en-scene, particularly for nineteenth-century America and England...[a] marvelous work of historical and philogical imagination."--Linda Bridges, National Review

"Remarkably readable, this chronicle of lexicography roams from the great dictionary itself to hidden nooks in the human psyche that sometimes house the motives for murder, the sources for sanity, and the blueprint for creativity."--Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"The Professor and the Madman...is the linguistic detective story of the decade.... Winchester does a superb job of historical research that should entice readers even more interested in deeds than words."--William Safire, New York Times Magazine

"Winchester's history of the OED is brisk and entertaining"--Mark Rozzo, Washington Post Book World

Describes how more than ten thousand definitions were submitted for the first Oxford English Dictionary from Dr. W. C. Minor, an American Civil War criminal whose life of genius and insanity make this true story both fascinating and unique. BOMC.