The Professor & the Madman

The story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (it took 70 years!!!) that is curiously entwined with the fate of William Minor, who suffered from delusions - later to be diagnosed with schizophrenia - which caused him to kill a man. The murder led to his arrest and confinement to a mental asylum for the following 40-50years of his life. As he was a man of high education, he found some solace and therapy in dedicating himself to supporting editor James Murray and the team of the OED, by meticulously supplying quotes for the creation of the dictionary. This intellectual stimulation kept him sane during the day, while the delusions came back to haunt him at night.

Good story, elegantly executed, i just wish there would have been more material to dig deeper into Minor and Murray, as I find educated Victorian men, lover of words, driven to systematise and capture each word's true history and meaning, very fascinating.