The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Oxford English Dictionary

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An extraordinary tale of madness, genius and obsession, discover the true story of the two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - and literary history! Barfield, Charles. " 'The Professor And The Madman' Trailer: Mel Gibson & Sean Penn Star In Film That Has Been Involved In Real-Life Legal Drama". ThePlaylist.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019 . Retrieved 8 February 2019. In 1871, Minor went to London for a change of pace to help his mental condition. In 1872, he was living in Tenison Street, Lambeth, [8] where once again he took up a dissolute life. On February 17, 1872, haunted by his paranoia, he fatally shot George Merrett, whom Minor wrongly believed to have broken into his room. Merrett had been on his way to work to support his family: six children and his pregnant wife, Eliza. Tatiana Siegel (21 February 2005). "Mel Gibson, Sean Penn to Star in 'Professor and the Madman' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 2 August 2016.

Theatrical release in markets outside the U.S. began in March and April 2019. In January 2019, Vertical Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. [14] The U.S. release date was May 10, 2019, with simultaneous limited theatrical release and video on demand. [15] Home media [ edit ] Regrettably Minor's illness got worse as he aged. He became far less sociable, and contributed much less to the dictionary too. The situation at Broadmoor became more difficult as well, when a new person took over the role of governor, who was much more rule-bound, and less sympathetic towards Minor. He made him get rid of his room full of books. As he grew older Minor - who had always defined himself agnostic - became religious, declaring himself to be a deist. Perhaps in the light of his growing religious ideas, his nightly fantasies began causing him even more distress. This culminated in him castrating himself , about 30 years after entering Broadmoor. He survived, but this crisis aside, his general quality of life had gone downhill too.

The madman, William Chester Minor

The discussion of the cooperative process of compiling the OED and the monumental undertaking that such creating the OED was fascinating. Tens of thousands of amateur philologists researching and sending Murray’s team slips with words and brief histories of their origin, which were then compiled and processed by the Oxford committee. This was terrific stuff.

Aurandt, Paul (1984). "14. Pen Pals". Paul Harvey's the Rest of the Story. London: Bantam. pp.31–33t. ISBN 978-0-553-25962-9. review: R. Bernstein, Books of the Times: Searching for a Life, He Found the Language. New York Times, September 16, 1998If we are fortunate, we find a worthwhile task to do while on this planet. Murray and Minor both found that task in compiling the English language. Winchester does a wonderful job of conveying the absurdity and the wonderfulness of these two men finding so much in common, despite one existing in the hallowed halls of academia and the other existing in the bedlam of an asylum. I had no idea about any of this! I don't think I've ever even used or seen an Oxford English Dictionary, being an American. I only remember Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, when people still owned hard copies of dictionaries. lol. Webster's Dictionary, then called the American Dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1828 and the Oxford English Dictionary's final volume, W, was published in 1928. Interesting! Weissberg, Jay (11 April 2019). "Film Review: Mel Gibson in 'The Professor and the Madman' ". Variety. Archived from the original on 29 April 2019 . Retrieved 6 May 2019. In The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Winchester takes an American surgeon & Civil War veteran turned murderer, William Minor, housed at the Crowthorne Prison, a psychiatric asylum in Berkshire, England and somehow fashions his story into a most compelling mystery tale that also involves the earlier phase of gestation of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the love of words (1sted.), UK, ISBN 978-0-14-027128-7, OCLC 42083202 {{ citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link). This is the fascinating, incredible, but true story of the 70+ year project to compile “The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles” - a biography of words that became “The Oxford English Dictionary” (OED). Not that you’d know that from the title. I enjoyed the story more than the novelistic telling of it. Masterful . . . one of those rare stories that combine human drama and historical significance' Independent Read more Details Jaafar, Ali (2 August 2016). "Sean Penn In Early Talks To Join Mel Gibson In 'Professor And The Madman' ". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 31 January 2017 . Retrieved 27 February 2017.The man chosen to head this army of bookworms was James Augustus Henry Murray. He was born in 1837, the son of a Scots tailor, and was a man of awesome energy and learning, one of those rare yet quintessential nineteenth-century savants. He left school at fourteen owing to poverty, but went on to educate himself, becoming a kind of walking encyclopaedia, with a particular linguistic gift – he spoke, or at least had a working knowledge of, practically every language, ancient or modern, known to man. The Professor and the Madman digital". Blu-ray.com. 10 May 2019. Archived from the original on 31 January 2020 . Retrieved 31 January 2020.