The Surgeon of Crowthorne - Simon Winchester

Easy-reading account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the contribution made by the mysterious Dr William Chester Minor to this Herculean task. It is all the more fascinating, and sad, given that Dr Minor carried out all his work from his cell in Broadmoor (another Victorian innovation, then, as now, Broadmoor was an "Asylum for the Criminally Insane") where he was paying a life sentence for murder.

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