The Surgeon of Crowthorne

Description:

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.

subjects: Biography,  Biography & Autobiography,  English language,  Etymology,  Friends and associates,  Grammar & Language Usage,  History,  Language Arts,  Lexicographers,  Lexicography,  New English dictionary on historical principles,  Nonfiction,  Oxford English dictionary,  Psychiatric hospital patients,  United States Civil War, 1861-1865,  Veterans,  Literary collections

People: James Augustus Henry Murray Sir (1837-1915),  William Chester Minor

Places: Great Britain,  United States

Times: Civil War, 1861-1865