Title: It is a fascinating biography of one man's incredible life.
Product review: What most reviews of The Professor and the Madman miss is that it is not a story of the creation of a dictionary, but a biography of a man's incredible life and the lessons we can learn from it. Spanning over 85 years, PM tells the story of a troubled man (William Minor) whose childhood begins in America, develops in Sri Lanka, and ends back where it began ... just in time for the Civil War. Serving as a medic, Minor sees - and causes - more pain than he was prepared for, and symptoms of mental illness soon emerge. Shortly thereafter, he goes to England to escape his demons. But alas, he cannot run from them, and in a fit of madness he takes the life of a local laborer. The rest of the story, indeed the bulk of it, deals with Minor's attempt to regain his sanity through his voluntary work on the Oxford English Dictionary. Winchester speculates that the OED would not exist without the critical help of Minor. I concur.
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