THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN Simon Winchester Harper Collins, Oct 13, 2009, Biography Subjects: Lexicography, Language Arts & Disciplines, General

Excellent research and writing, a pleasure to read. From the shores of Ceylon, through the American Civil war to and London murder and decades of lexicography and lexicology, two major contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Professor James Murray and Dr. W. C. Minor spend over a decade working with each other and are only 60 minutes away, but never met meet until about 17 years into their relationship. Murray managed the overall OED effort, W. C. Minor was an inmate at the Asylum For The Criminally Insane, Broadmoor.

The OED took 70 Years to complete,released in 1928, 10 volumes with 414,825 words using 227,779,589 letters/numbers and supported by 1,827,306 quotations, over 10,000 contributed by W. C. Minor.

Minor, a Yale Medical School graduate and Civil War veteran was born in 1834 in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and was institutionalized after murdering a brewery stoker named George Merrett in February 17, 1871. Minor struggled with demons most of his life and entered the asylum at the age of 38. He then spent the next 47 years in asylums and died Friday March 26 1920 (85 years and 9 months).