The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary
256
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary
256Hardcover(1 ED)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780060175962 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 08/26/1998 |
| Edition description: | 1 ED |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 408,367 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.89(d) |
| Lexile: | 1330L (what's this?) |
About the Author
Hometown:
New York; Massachusetts; ScotlandDate of Birth:
September 28, 1944Place of Birth:
London, EnglandEducation:
M.A., St. Catherine¿s College, Oxford, 1966Website:
http://www.simonwinchester.comRead an Excerpt
the dead of Night
in Lambeth Marsh
Murder (m2.0de0), sb. Forms: a. 1 mor1or, -ur, 3-4 mor1re, 3-4, 6 murthre, 4 myr1er, 4-6 murthir, morther, 5 Sc. murthour, murthyr, 5-6 murthur, 6 mwrther, Sc. morthour, 4-9 (now dial. and Hist. or arch.) murther; b. 3-5 murdre, 4-5 moerdre, 4-6 mordre, 5 moordre, 6 murdur, mourdre, 6- murder. [OE. mor3or neut. (with pl. of masc. form mor1ras) = Goth. maur1r neut.:-OTeut. *mur1rom:-pre-Teut. *mrtro-m, f. root *mer-: mor-: mr- to die, whence L. mori' to die, mors (morti-) death, Gr. mort'j, brot'j mortal, Skr. mr. to die, mara masc., mrti fem., death, marta mortal, OSl. mi'r'eti, Lith. mirti to die, Welsh marw, Irish mar1 dead.
The word has not been found in any Teut. lang. but Eng. and Gothic, but that it existed in continental WGer. is evident, as it is the source of OF. murdre, murtre (mod. F. meurtre) and of med. L. mordrum, murdrum, and OHG. had the derivative murdren Murder v. All the Teut. langs. exc. Gothic possessed a synonymous word from the same root with different suffix: OE. mor3 neut., masc. (Murth1), OS. mor3 neut., OFris. morth, mord neut., MDu. mort, mord neut. (Du. moord), OHG. mord (MHG. mort, mod. G. mord), ON. mor3 neut.:-OTeut. *mur1o-:-pre-Teut. *mrto-.
The change of original 3 into d (contrary to the general tendency to change d into 3 before syllabic r) was prob. due to the influence of the AF. murdre, moerdre and the Law Latin murdrum.]
1. The most heinous kind of criminal homicide; also, an instance of this. In English (also Sc. and U.S.) Law, defined as the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought; often more explicitly wilful murder.
In OE. the word could be applied to any homicide that was strongly reprobated (it had also the senses 'great wickedness', 'deadly injury', 'torment'). More strictly, however, it denoted secret murder, which in Germanic antiquity was alone regarded as (in the modern sense) a crime, open homicide being considered a private wrong calling for blood-revenge or compensation. Even under Edward I, Britton explains the AF. murdre only as felonious homicide of which both the perpetrator and the victim are unidentified. The 'malice aforethought' which enters into the legal definition of murder, does not (as now interpreted) admit of any summary definition. A person may even be guilty of 'wilful murder' without intending the death of the victim, as when death results from an unlawful act which the doer knew to be likely to cause the death of some one, or from injuries inflicted to facilitate the commission of certain offences. It is essential to 'murder' that the perpetrator be of sound mind, and (in England, though not in Scotland) that death should ensue within a year and a day after the act presumed to have caused it. In British law no degrees of guilt are recognized in murder; in the U.S. the law distinguishes 'murder in the first degree' (where there are no mitigating circumstances) and 'murder in the second degree'.
In Victorian London, even in a place as louche and notoriously crime-ridden as Lambeth Marsh, the sound of gunshots was a rare event indeed. The marsh was a sinister place, a jumble of slums and sin that crouched, dark and ogrelike, on the bank of the Thames just across from Westminster; few respectable Londoners would ever admit to venturing there. It was a robustly violent part of town as well--the footpad lurked in Lambeth, there had once been an outbreak of garroting, and in every crowded alley were the roughest kinds of pickpocket. Fagin, Bill Sikes, and Oliver Twist would have all seemed quite at home in Victorian Lambeth: This was Dickensian London writ large.
But it was not a place for men with guns. The armed criminal was a phenomenon little known in the Lambeth of Prime Minister Gladstone's day, and even less known in the entire metropolitan vastness of London. Guns were costly, cumbersome, difficult to use, hard to conceal. Then, as still today, the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime was thought of as somehow a very un-British act--and as something to be written about and recorded as a rarity. "Happily," proclaimed a smug editorial in Lambeth's weekly newspaper, "we in this country have no experience of the crime of 'shooting down,' so common in the United States."
So when a brief fusillade of three revolver shots rang out shortly after two o'clock on the moonlit Saturday morning of February 17, 1872, the sound was unimagined, unprecedented, and shocking. The three cracks--perhaps there were four--were loud, very loud, and they echoed through the cold and smokily damp night air. They were heard--and, considering their rarity, just by chance instantly recognized--by a keen young police constable named Henry Tarrant, then attached to the Southwark Constabulary's L Division.
The clocks had only recently struck two, his notes said later; he was performing with routine languor the duties of the graveyard shift, walking slowly beneath the viaduct arches beside Waterloo Railway Station, rattling the locks of the shops and cursing the bone-numbing chill.
When he heard the shots, Tarrant blew his whistle to alert any colleagues who (he hoped) might be on patrol nearby, and he began to run. Within seconds he had raced through the warren of mean and slippery lanes that made up what in those days was still called a village, and had emerged into the wide riverside swath of Belvedere Road, from whence he was certain the sounds had come.
Another policeman, Henry Burton, who had heard the piercing whistle, as had a third, William Ward, rushed to the scene. According to Burton's notes, he dashed toward the echoing sound and came across his colleague Tarrant, who was by then holding a man, as if arresting him. "Quick!" cried Tarrant. "Go to the road--a man has been shot!" Burton and Ward raced toward Belvedere Road and within seconds found the unmoving body of a dying man. They fell to their knees, and onlookers noted they had cast off their helmets and gloves and were hunched over the victim.
There was blood gushing onto the pavement--blood staining a spot that would for many months afterward be described in London's more dramatically minded papers as the location of a heinous crime, a terrible event, an atrocious occurrence, a vile murder.
The Lambeth Tragedy, the papers eventually settled upon calling it--as if the simple existence of Lambeth itself were not something of a tragedy. Yet this was a most unusual event, even by the diminished standards of the marsh dwellers. For though the place where the killing occurred had over the years been witness to many strange events, the kind eagerly chronicled in the penny dreadfuls, this particular drama was to trigger a chain of consequences that was quite without precedent. And while some aspects of this crime and its aftermath would turn out to be sad and barely believable, not all of them, as this account will show, were to be wholly tragic. Far from it, indeed.
Table of Contents
- 1: The Dead of Night in Lambeth Marsh
- 2: The Man Who Taught Latin to Cattle
- 3: The Madness of War
- 4: Gathering Earth's Daughters
- 5: The Big Dictionary Conceived
- 6: The Scholar in Cell Block Two
- 7: Entering the Lists
- 8: Annulated, Art, Brick-Tea, Buckwheat
- 9: The Meeting of Minds
- 10: The Unkindest Cut
- 11: Then Only the Monuments
- Postscript
- Author's Note
- Acknowledgments
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- 2: The Man Who Taught Latin to Cattle
What People are Saying About This
"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."
"elegant and scrupulous"
I found The Professor and the Madman both enthralling and moving, in its brilliant reconstruction of a most improbable event: the major contributions made to the great Oxford English Dictionary by a deeply delusional, incarcerated "madman," and the development of a true friendship between him and the editor of the OED. One sees here the redemptive potential of work and love in even the most deeply, "hopelessly," psychotic."
Winchester has written a powerful account of the shifting foundations on which meaning is built, and the impoverishment of a language that could not describe or give peace to one of its makers.
Interviews
On Thursday, September 17th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Simon Winchester to discuss The Professor And The Madman.
Moderator: Welcome, Simon Winchester! We are so pleased that you could join us this evening to discuss your new book, The Professor And The Madman. How are you this evening?
Simon Winchester: Tremendously well, thank you. It is actually so very good, after two weeks of talking about the book, to be writing about it instead -- very therapeutic and restful. I hope!
Graham from Boston: How did you first hear of this fascinating story? Thanks for such an excellent account of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Simon Winchester: I was, believe it or not, in the bath one day before breakfast, reading a book about lexicography (as one does). It was called Chasing The Sun by Jonathon Green, and in it, the author mentions, almost as an aside, how the lexicographical world was familiar with the tale of W. C. Minor, the lunatic murderer who was so important to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I remember sitting up in the bath, Archimedes-like, saying I had never heard of such a thing, and calling a friend of mine in Oxford (the phone being beside the bath). She said yes, she knew the tale -- and if I could get access to the files in Broadmoor asylum, then, she thought, I'd have a splendid yarn to tell.
Lynn Riggs from Chesterfield: Is your book the first work about Minor and Murray? What an amazing account. I can't believe it hasn't already been made into a play or book.
Simon Winchester: Actually a New York playwright named Mitchell Redman has written a play about one rather sad aspect of W. C. Minor's life, but the play never found a producer (perhaps it might now, because of the renewed interest in the tale); and I haven't seen it because, quite understandably, Mitchell prefers to keep the play tightly guarded. But you're right -- it is surprising that it hasn't been told fully before. Surprising and, from my point of view, delightful!
Peter Henry from Seattle: Can't wait to read your book! I am curious at how the making of Murray's Oxford English Dictionary was funded. How long did it take to complete, and were all the members working on it salaried?
Simon Winchester: It took an astonishing 70 years to complete (they thought it would take four). It cost about three million pounds in the money of the day, and everyone was paid (including Dr. Murray's children, who were paid sixpence a week to sort the slips into alphabetical order -- and became demon crossword solvers as a result). The editors also issued the dictionary in paperback parts, known as fascicles, so as to improve their cash flow. In the USA they cost about $2.50 each, and came out about once every three years.
Dale from Williamsburg: What type of sources did you use to write this book -- i.e. where did you draw most of your information on Minor?
Simon Winchester: The two crucial sources were the previously secret files at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in England, and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. Plus a lot of U.S. Army records, Civil War records, and the amazing archives at Oxford University Press (which preserve such things as the tail of a mouse found among the dictionary slips -- and filed under the letter T, not M, a matter that offended some linguistic pedants).
Dennis from Worchester, MA: It is amazing to comprehend that Shakespeare did not have access to a dictionary! Thanks for including the chapters on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. How fascinating. I am curious -- why do you think it took the English so long (lagging behind Italy and France) to compile a dictionary?
Simon Winchester: I think the lag came about in part because of the intellectual struggle going on in England over whether or not to try to "fix" the language, as the French tried to do, to establish a body that decided what was good and what was bad, what could be included and what could not. People like Jonathan Swift argued that English ought to be fixed like this; others -- happily, the majority, in the end -- reckoned that English was a forever changing language, living and extending itself, and that a proper dictionary, which would of necessity be a very large book, would reflect that constant shifting, that constant evolution.
Reed Tate from Boston: What are some of the explanations of Minor's madness? And when he contributed to the dictionary, was he still suffering?
Simon Winchester: It is always difficult to decide what event triggers madness. All we can say for sure about Minor was that he had a predisposition to madness, and that something tipped him over the edge into delusional paranoid schizophrenia, which is how he would be diagnosed today. He probably was tipped over the edge by being forced to brand the letter D with a red-hot branding iron onto the cheek of a deserter in the one Civil War battle in which he fought -- but then again, he may have been terribly sunburned during a long summer duty in south Florida, and there is some evidence that he was ordered to witness the execution of a Yale classmate. Whatever the cause, he was prodigiously and floridly mad for all the years that he wrote for the Oxford English Dictionary, and for long after. All his life, in fact.
Reagan from Miami, FL: How often is the Oxford English Dictionary revised? Do you think there will ever be a complete overhaul of it?
Simon Winchester: It is being revised as we speak. A fully integrated second edition came out in 1989; there is now a pretty up-to-date CD-ROM, and they are doing a 3rd edition online (for all info on this, I'd recommend you visit the Oxford English Dictionary web page at www.Oxford English Dictionary.co.uk, I think.) In addition to that, a "New Additions" volume comes out every couple of years. There is a huge dictionary staff at Oxford, all beavering away like mad.
Sarah from Middlebury: Your descriptions of Winchester's madness suggest that he suffered from schizophrenia, complete with his delusional theories of conspiracy. What do you think?
Simon Winchester: Sarah, you speak of "Winchester's madness" -- I hope you mean Minor's. Though there is a strong streak of insanity among many lexicographers, and those interested in them, I am told.
Alexia from Yale: Were the records that you found on Minor and Murray available to the public? How painstaking were your research efforts?
Simon Winchester: The research was not, in truth, terribly difficult -- although the people in the District of Columbia government refused point-blank to let me have any St. Elizabeth's records. However, I rather trumped their ace by finding that, since Minor was a federal patient when St. E's was a federal institution, all his records were in the National Archives and available merely by asking, over the Internet. The Broadmoor Archives became available after a lot of pleading -- Broadmoor is still home to a lot of very dangerously ill people, and the authorities are not frightfully keen to let strangers in.
Claire R. from Littleton: Where did your research for this book take you?
Simon Winchester: Not very far. Broadmoor itself, Orange County, Virginia, South London, Washington, D.C., New Haven, and Sri Lanka. Actually, now that I come to think of it, quite far. But much less far than earlier books.
Larry M. from New York University: With the publication of your book and works like a A Beautiful Mind, there seems to be a trend now with recognizing genius in madness. What do you think? What can we make of such individuals?
Simon Winchester: The old chestnut of "the very fine line" that supposedly divides pure genius from dementia and lunacy -- I think it can be very overrated, very romanticized. There are some cases, and this is one of them. Ezra Pound was another. Richard Dadd. But I am sorry to say that most of the patients at Broadmoor today, and in whom I became interested, did not seem to display an abundance of talent.
Pam H. from Detroit: Your bio says that this book may be made into a movie. Would you be involved in writing the screenplay? When can we expect it in theaters?
Simon Winchester: Actually Luc Besson, who has bought the movie rights, has told me that I am considered "too literary" to do the screenplay (which I and my chums think is a bit of a joke). So someone else has been asked to tinker around with the book, and I am awaiting results. Other than that, I know that Mel Gibson has expressed a keen interest in playing Dr. Murray, and talks are said to be going on between Besson and Gibson. We'll see. I'm not holding my breath. But Besson is an amazing director, and something rather extraordinary could come out of this.
Lance R. from San Francisco, CA: How would one begin to go about finding the earliest possible use of a word? What a daunting task! How did Murray orchestrate this endeavor among his readers?
Simon Winchester: Constant exhortation, I can only imagine. Some people, when set a challenge (such as "find the word 'web page' in sources earlier than 1987," say) set about it with fantastic enthusiasm. The Oxford English Dictionary Newsletter, also to be found on the Oxford English Dictionary web page I mentioned before, gives a half-yearly list of the editors desiderata, which include things like the example I gave above.
Paul C. from New Jersey: What is your opinion on the issue of whether we should detain the mentally ill in institutions? There seems to be a lot of debate on this issue lately.
Simon Winchester: I'm certainly no expert. But within the walls of Broadmoor there are clearly a large number of people who would be a great danger to those outside; there are also a lot of very elderly criminals who might be harmless but unable to function, and would end up on the streets. So a place like Broadmoor ends up playing a dual role -- segregating abominably dangerous people from society and acting as an asylum, "a place of refuge," to give the dictionary definition, for those unable to function beyond the walls.
Berry Marshall from Baltimore, MD: Would you consider yourself a philologist? Thanks for the descriptions of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Wonderful!
Simon Winchester: Thanks a lot. No, I'm neither a philologist nor a lexicographer. But like all writers, I love words, and this makes one a dabbler in both disciplines.
Katherine Cleary from Reston: I understand that you are a journalist. What has been your most memorable assignment?
Simon Winchester: The Jonestown massacre. Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. President Nixon's resignation. Pol Pot's funeral. Getting thrown into prison for three months in Argentina on spying charges. Lots of odds and ends stick in the mind.
Adrian W. from New York: What do you make of Eliza Merrett, the widow of the man Minor murdered, visiting Minor? How odd!
Simon Winchester: Almost the oddest aspect of the story, I think. I wonder how the film, if there is to be one, will treat the visits of this poor woman to the cell of a Minor who was clearly obsessed with sex. We will see. I await, I have to say, with some trepidation!
Saul from Reno: Why did the makers of the Oxford English Dictionary feel that quotations were so important? That must have been the most laborious aspect of the whole task!
Simon Winchester: It was incredibly laborious -- after all, if there are 1,800,000 quotations in the finished Oxford English Dictionary, consider how many had to be collected in the first place. Millions upon millions. But they were crucially important because they demonstrated the way in which the meanings and senses of words evolved over the centuries; they showed the living language actually living, as it were.
Leighton from Brooklyn, NY: What is next for you, Mr. Winchester? I found your book riveting. I hope you can find an equally compelling subject.
Simon Winchester: Thanks a lot. I am now working on another very odd tale, about a failed Arctic expedition in the 1880s, in which there was a great deal of cannibalism, and in which reputations of great men were irreparably damaged by the yellow press reporting of the time (little worse then than now, frankly). I have just come back from a long trek in Northern Ellesmere Island to see the place where the expedition started; next summer I'll go back to where it ended so tragically.
Mary Jamison from Greensboro, PA: What was Murray's reaction when he first met Minor? Can't wait to read this book. Looks great.
Simon Winchester: As Murray was actually aware that Minor was mad, he was determined to be kindly during the first meeting. After taking tea and Dundee cake with him in his cell, Murray pronounced Minor "a fine Christian gentleman -- and seemingly as sane as myself," which many consider more a comment on Murray's own sanity than on Minor's mental state!
Reed from Louisville: What has been the reaction overseas to your book? Was it published in England first?
Simon Winchester: It was published last June under the title The Surgeon Of Crowthorne, and I'm happy to say it made number one on the bestseller list and remains hovering in the top ten. Considering that none of my other books has made it into the lists, nor even come close, this has been (and continues to be) a very pleasing experience.
Tad Howard from Alexandria: What was the most surprising thing you found out when researching this book?
Simon Winchester: I think the tragic and traumatic event that occurred on December 5, 1902, but which I don't think I would be permitted to tell you about online. It was a shock to read the file, and to imagine that a man could do such a thing.
Trent from Charlottesville: Did you come up with this title? It is marvelous!
Simon Winchester: Actually, no. I wanted it to have the British title, The Surgeon Of Crowthorne, but I was told this would ensure the book's early journey to the remainder table. So my agent, Jody Hotchkiss at Sterling Lord, came up with the idea, and I'm happy to record my gratitude to him.
W. Stein from St. Louis, MO: Was the final Oxford English Dictionary version true to the vision of its original conceivers?
Simon Winchester: I believe it was, and remains so. Mind you, there are critics: Read a book called Empire Of Words by a Princeton academic named Willinsky, and he will show you how the Oxford English Dictionary is an imperial contrivance of the minds of dead white English men, and so should be (at least to an extent) disregarded.
Elke from New York: Who did the illustrations for this book? They are lovely!
Simon Winchester: I'll pass the message on to the chap in London who drew them for us. I was at first a little dubious, but people seem to like them, and so I have since eaten a bit of humble pie, or crow, or whatever, for ever having questioned the wisdom of those at HarperCollins who argued for them.
Jonathan from Seattle: What drew you to the character of Minor? Why did you feel the need to write a book about him? What were your inspirations in doing so? I'm really looking forward to reading it. It sounds fascinating!
Simon Winchester: It was a purely journalistic hunch -- the fact that a good old-fashioned story was out there to be told, the kind of thing that could take you into a crowded room, and have you say, "Shush a moment! I've got something extraordinary to tell you" -- and everyone would hush, and be amazed at the end.
Stefanie from New York: Is there a lesson to be learned from Minor's example?
Simon Winchester: That there certainly is redemption to be had -- that everyone can make a contribution, that all of us has a chance, in some way big or small, to make a difference. See how the deck was stacked against him -- and see what an astonishing thing he did, the benefits of which will last for always.
Emily Wood from Toledo: Any particular challenges in writing this book? And did Minor keep any sort of personal journal?
Simon Winchester: Seemingly not -- though people have recently written to me with offers of other papers, so who knows what I'll find out there. The challenge was really, Could I do this? I'm really a travel writer, and the idea of traveling in time, rather than in place, was strange for me. But it turned out to be truly the most enjoyable book to write.
Melissa from Connecticut: Was Minor treated fairly in the insane asylum?
Simon Winchester: Until the very end, when a brute named Dr. Brayn took away all his privileges and turfed him out of the two rooms he had occupied for 40 years. Brayn is the villain of the story, in my view. (Except he had the ideal name, I suppose, for someone running a lunatic asylum.)
Richard Hanson from Texas, USA: Is there any chance that the Internet will kill the print industry, at least for the dictionary? I worry about this!
Simon Winchester: I never want to see books as beautiful as the Oxford English Dictionary vanish. I am optimistic: Video didn't kill film, and I don't think what we are doing here will stop people producing, and reading, those wonderful confections of paper and ink we call books.
Moderator: What an interesting discussion! Thank you, Simon Winchester, for joining us this evening. Do you have any closing comments for your online audience?
Simon Winchester: Just that this has been enormous fun. My typing fingers are hurting a bit (being a hunt-and-peck person), but I'd like it to go on and on. Anyway, thanks a lot, and farewell from here.
