I read a few pages, think about what's in them & then read a few more. I simply can't read it fast because I don't want to. It is also a grander use of the English language than Paul used in my mind. The contrast, comparison, confluence & inverted results of these two lives from their beginnings to their ends is told in a style that I can only compare to Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story. It also covers the difficulties of creating dictionaries but that is a side story. The book is a contrast of their lives & a telling of their collaboration done in such a way as to be hypnotic. This, despite the fact they lived less than 45 miles apart.
The American then spent all but the final 10 years of his life in a sanatorium, quite literally insane until his death in 1920 & the Scot did not know that his number one amateur contributor was in an asylum until ten years of collaboration had past. The Scot holds the place of one of the finest scholars that ever lived & the American descended into madness & killed an innocent Englishman in England due to his insanity. These opposites ring their lives & yet they spent 20 years working together on the OED (which took 70 years to finish) but never met until about 10 years into their collaboration on the project despite the fact they were but few miles apart. The layman became a surgeon & served during the Revolutionary War. The head of the project started life as a commoner & the layman was from a dynastic American family. Members Reviews: A life: Profit or Loss? THE SURGEON of CROWTHORNE It's the story of the relationship between the Scottish man that headed the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary & the man that contributed the most as a volunteer layman to it's creation. He was a millionaire, an expert on the English language, and a qualified surgeon, but he was imprisoned as a lunatic for murder. What he found was shocking: Minor lived in Broadmoor asylum. Finally stirred by curiosity, Murray himself went to visit Minor. On many occasions, Murray invited this mysterious correspondent to Oxford, but the invitation was always declined. Among the most prolific was William Chester Minor, who sent editor James Murray thousands of extracts. It took 50 years, even with the help of numerous contributors. Listen to audiobook in full for free on Title: The Surgeon of Crowthorne Subtitle: The Murder, Mystery and Madness of the Oxford English Dictionary Author: Simon Winchester Narrator: Simon Winchester Format: Unabridged Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins Language: English Release date: 11-24-17 Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime Publisher's Summary: The compiling of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental task.
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