Minor was educated, gentlemanly, industrious, and a psychopathic killer, who had gunned down a man at random in the London streets because he believed his victim was an Irish terrorist after his blood.

Simon Winchester won't win any prizes for the elegance of his prose style, but he has dug up a strange and extraordinary life story and turned it into a compelling piece of historical detective work. He never really penetrates into the central mystery of Minor's madness, because no one can. The mystery remains, inviolable, and makes his tale all the more darkly compelling. --Christopher Hart

While not exactly exhilarated by this read, I was not disappointed either. You will find the tale of W C Minor a fascinating one in itself - he was clearly a mad genius. What Winchester does to add more interest is to catalog his involvement in the creation of the OED.

For me, the real tale of the book is the dedication of OED Editor James Murray to the cause of the dictionary over most of his life. I can't think of a more boring job than editor of a dictionary - yet Winchester makes it sound like a blast!

Don't let the subject matter of the creation of the OED turn you off this book. It is an easy and enjoyable read.


Stranger than Fiction   October 8, 2004
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book recounts a tale so improbable that as fiction it would have been hard to believe. Two Victorian lives become entwined. On the one hand, a great scholar who has bettered himself through learning, a man of towering reputation and influence; on the other, a millionaire madman whose delusional grip on reality has failed him and left him isolated in a lunatic asylum, a continent away from his family, with only his books for company.

Somehow their paths collide, and for years they work at a distance to create together the greatest reference book in the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary.

Eventually they meet, and their rapport blossoms into true friendship. A strange story unfolds, of gothic madness, violence, improbable love and eventual disintegration.

At times uplifting, at others rather muted, this book can at times be unevenly paced; but overall it is a very rewarding read.


A Dictionary will never be the same again …………..   May 25, 2004
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is a well-told tale that leads the audience through some of the politics involved in the production of the Oxford English Dictionary. The author has fictionalised the account at times through necessity, but made it clear that this is what he has done, in a story that combines murder most foul with the troubled life of the murdered.

The dictionary (“OED”) was a product of the Victorian ‘we can do anything’ optimism, and was undoubtedly a hugely ambitious project. The task would probably have been finished without the help of Dr William Chester Minor, a resident of a large country house in Berkshire (and better known as Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane). However, the work was enormously advanced by the surgeon / murderer. Minor grasped the vast amount of work involved, and had the tiem and source material to contribute freely. He also had a wonderful method in his searching out quotations for the normal and abnormal use of words. His method enabled the editorial team, led by Dr James Murray, to request help from Minor and know thay would receive an enlightening and quality answer.

Minor died in 1920, back in his native America, more that 7 years before the completion of the OED. In the completed work there are 414835 words defined, and 1,827,306 illustrative quotations. Minor alone had contributed scores of thousands.

The English speaking world is indebted to the contributions of William Minor. We are also grateful to Simon Winchester for telling the tale with clarity and humour. Winchester also debunks the mythical account of the first meeting between Dr Murray and Minor. I got the feeling that the author liked the fabled account, even though he knew it not to be true (and clearly states that fact).