In The Professor and the Madman, the author, Simon Winchester, does an excellent job of paralleling the history of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary with a touching story of friendship between the dictionary’s editor, Professor Murray, and a notable contributor to the dictionary, Dr. Minor. Simon Winchester provides an interesting background as to how the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the world’s greatest books, came to existence. He includes a genealogy …showed first 75 words of 423 total…

…showed last 75 words of 423 total…play a large role in the making of the biggest dictionary in their time period. Newer editions of the Oxford English Dictionary still exist today and in the words of Simon Winchester, “The [Oxford English Dictionary] was the heroic creation of a legion of interested and enthusiastic men and women of wide general knowledge and interest; and it lives on today, just as lives the language which it rightly claims to be a portrait” (Winchester 221).