ISBN: 9780140271287
BINDING: Paperback
CONDITION: Used - excellent
PUBLISHED: First published 1998; this edition 1999
DESCRIPTION: Simon Winchester The Surgeon of Crowthorne - a tale of murder, madness and the Oxford English Dictionary
'The making of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers.
One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the OED's editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him. What he found was incredible - Minor was a millionaire American civil war surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder and yet who dedicated his entire cell-bound life to work on the English language.' Penguin
