Crazy Genius

The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary was a literary achievement that required an enormous amount of work from an army of volunteers over a period of seven decades. It was 1858 when the Philological Society approved the project to create the world’s first “historical” dictionary - one that would trace words back to their earliest usage.

As envisioned, the method for creating this historical dictionary required extensive reading of centuries of written works to arrive at the earliest usage of all English words, a task that would take a dedicated team a very, very long time to complete. Thus was born the idea of recruiting volunteers to assist with the work. The volunteers would read and send in slips of paper with quotations from books, magazines and newspapers, containing unique words that a core team would then review, compile, and use as the basis for definitions for the Dictionary.

After an initial recruiting effort and the work of a large number of volunteers the effort lost steam. In 1879 Oxford University Press agreed to publish the work that would result from the still to be completed efforts, and to pay Professor James Murray to oversee it. With this backing volunteers were again sought, and the work restarted and continued for many years. The dictionary was published in volumes, beginning with a volume covering words from A to Ant published in 1884. The final volume and full dictionary was finally published in 1928.

Over the years many volunteered to supply quotations. But among those volunteers one stood out for his work methods and for the volume and speed with which he could supply quotations to the core team.

WIlliam Chester Minor was an American surgeon and military officer residing in the London area who volunteered on the Dictionary project. He devised his own system to track quotations, allowing him to progress through the alphabet alongside the work of the lexicographers on the core team. His output became particularly valuable as he was able to provide quotations to the team on short notice as they encountered difficulties. He was credited by name in more than one of the volumes.

Beyond his prodigious output and unique methods for compiling quotations there was something else that distinguished William Chester Minor. He was a murderer, and his residence outside of London was in a lunatic asylum - what today we would call a mental institution.

Simon Winchester takes us through the stories of both Professor James Murray and WC Minor, and their eventual meeting and subsequent friendship. Much of the story belongs to Minor, largely because Winchester was able to get a hold of the mental institution’s records for Minor, which is the largest cache of information about these two men.

The mental problems that Minor experienced did not show up until his brief experience as a surgeon in the field during the Civil War. Winchester relays a story involving Minor being assigned the task of branding a young man in the face with the letter “D” for deserter and ties the young surgeon’s revulsion at this experience to the beginnings of his mental decline. There is some dispute whether this story is true or a later fabrication.

What is known is that Minor had strong sexual urges and seems to have also had strong guilt for his actions. At the end of the Civil War, stationed in New York, Minor spent much of his off-duty time in the red-light district with prostitutes. His proclivities became known to his commanding officers, who transferred him to a remote outpost in the Florida Panhandle in an effort to curtail his activities. His mental state worsened, resulting in his first institutionalization.

In 1871 Minor went abroad, hoping that the change of place would do him good. He settled in London but continued to experience delusions that men would kidnap him each night and force him to debauch himself with untold numbers of women. One night in February 1872 Minor awoke from such a delusion and left his rooms with a gun, believing he was pursuing a man who had tried to abduct him. In the streets he encountered George Merrett, who he shot dead.

At trail Minor was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to Broadmoor asylum in the village of Crowthorne. He was to reside there until finally sent back to the US in 1910.

How Minor came to know of the volunteer opportunity under Professor Murray, and to apply for it, and how Murray came to understand that this volunteer was institutionalized - when he had never met him, and with whom he had only ever corresponded - is the remarkable story of this book.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: A fascinating story of an American suffering insanity in Victorian England and also of how the Oxford English Dictionary came to be. This is a short book - less than 200 pages - that flows along very well, though I did find the language at times to be a little stilted.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I bought my copy at a used book fair in Brisbane a few years back.