The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (35 page)

It is fanciful to suppose that anyone so far away, in distance or in time, would have had access to a large enough spy-glass. But assuming that such a device did exist, and that the person at this lunar viewing-point had its brass and glassware trained precisely on the northern coast of California at that very particular moment in time, with the terminator brightening his view inch by faraway inch in his field of view—what, precisely, might he have seen?

The answer is inevitably dismaying to all of those who like to think that the earth and its inhabitants and the events that occur upon it have any importance at all, in a cosmic sense. For from that distance he would have seen, essentially, nothing.

Yet at a few minutes past five in the morning of that day something did, indeed, happen.

The planet very briefly
shrugged
.

It flexed itself for a few seconds, perhaps a little short of a minute. If our observer had been acutely aware of his geography, and had he been fortunate enough to have been staring at a very precisely defined spot in the north of California at exactly the right moment, then he might have seen what appeared to him a tiny ripple spurt in towards the coast from the sea. He might, moreover, have seen that spreading ripple as it moved slowly and steadily inshore, and then watched as it moved, fan-like and subtle, up and down the coastline as a tiny
shudder
. It would have seemed to him a momentary loss of focus, something that would have made his vision suddenly blur very slightly, and then just as quickly clear again.

He might have noticed this; or more likely he might have blinked and missed it. If he noticed at all, he would probably have assumed it was more of a problem with his lens and his telescope than with the surface of the planet below. And even if he had concluded that the ripple and the shudder had in fact occurred on the green-and-blue-and-white planet that floated serene in the lunar sky, he would also have been quick to conclude that whatever it was had been momentary, trivial, and utterly forgettable. No more, for the earth entire, than a gentle and momentary shrug.

“[I]f they were sensible and observant they took care to note and remember exactly when it all began, and we have their memories set down for us still.”

It was all so very different down on the surface of the planet itself. On earth, on the western part of that great entity called by its inhabitants North America and particularly in and around the fragile and rather delicately constructed young northern city of San Francisco, a number of people realized all too quickly that something of great significance was happening. And if they were sensible and observant they took care to note and remember exactly when it all began, and we have their memories set down for us still.

Have You Read? More by Simon Winchester

KRAKATOA: THE DAY THE WORLD EXPLODED: AUGUST 27, 1883

The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa—the name has since become a by-word for a cataclysmic disaster—was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only, very recently, become properly understood; the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined: Dust swirled round the world for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogota and Washington went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island’s destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significantly of all—in view of today’s new political climate—the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy by fundamentalist Muslims, one of the first eruptions of Islamic killings anywhere. Simon Winchester’s long experience in world wandering, history, and geology give this fascinating and iconic event an entirely new life and perspective.

THE MAP THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: WILLIAM SMITH AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN GEOLOGY

In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He found that by tracing the placement of fossils, which he uncovered in his excavations, one could follow layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell—clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world—making it possible, for the first time ever, to draw a chart of the hidden underside of the Earth. Determined to expose what he realized was the landscape’s secret fourth dimension, Smith spent twenty-two years piecing together the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map. But instead of receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors’ prison, the victim of plagiarism, and virtually homeless for more than ten years. Finally, in 1831, this quiet genius—now known as the father of modern geology—received the Geological Society of London’s highest award and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension. With a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.

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A NOTE ABOUT THE TYPES USED IN THIS BOOK

Monotype Bell, as cut by Richard Austin in 1788 for English Printer John Bell, is used for the main text of this book. Clarendon, named for the Clarendon Press at Oxford, printing site of the great dictionary, is used for the extracts within the chapters. The dictionary entry opening each chapter is set in Times Roman, designed for the
Times
of London, and historically attributed to Stanley Morrison.

Praise

“
The Professor and the Madman
…is the linguistic detective story of the decade…. Winchester does a superb job of historical research that should entice readers even more interested in deeds than words.”

—William Safire,
New York Times Magazine

“Elegant and scrupulous.”

—
New York Times Book Review

“I found
The Professor and the Madman
both enthralling and moving, in its brilliant reconstruction of a most improbable event: the major contributions made to the great
Oxford English Dictionary
by a deeply delusional, incarcerated ‘madman,’ and the development of a true friendship between him and the editor of the
OED
. One sees here the redemptive potential of work and love in even the most deeply, ‘hopelessly,’ psychotic.”

—Oliver Sacks, M.D.

“Remarkably readable, this chronicle of lexicography roams from the great dictionary itself to hidden nooks in the human psyche that sometimes house the motives for murder, the sources for sanity, and the blueprint for creativity.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred)

“An extraordinary tale, and Simon Winchester could not have told it better…. [He] has written a splendid book.”

—
The Economist

“Madness, violence, arcane obsessions, weird learning, ghastly comedy, all set out in an atmosphere of po-faced, high neo-Gothic. The geographical span is wide, from Dickensian London to Florida’s Pensacola Bay, from the beaches at Trincomalee to the Civil War battlefields of the United States…. It is a wonderful story.”

—
Literary Review

“This is almost my favorite kind of book: the work of social and intellectual history which through the oblique treatment of major developments manages to throw unusual light on humankind and its doings…. Simon Winchester’s effortlessly clear, spare prose is the perfect vehicle for the tale…absolutely riveting.”

—
The Times
(London)

“It’s a story for readers who know the joy of words and can appreciate side trips through the history of dictionaries and marvel at the idea that when Shakespeare wrote, there we no dictionaries to consult…. Winchester, a British journalist who’s written 12 other books, combines a reporter’s eye for detail with a historian’s sense of scale. His writing is droll and eloquent.”

—
USA Today

“Winchester’s history of the
OED
is brisk and entertaining.”

—
Washington Post Book World

“Winchester has written a powerful account of the shifting foundations on which meaning is built, and the impoverishment of a language that could not describe or give peace to one of its makers.”

—
New York Post

“Mr. Winchester deftly weaves…a narrative full of suspense, pathos and humor…. In this elegant book the writer has created a vivid parable, in the spirit of Nabokov and Borges. There is much truth to be drawn from it, about Victorian pride, the relation between language and the world, and the fine line between sanity and madness.”

—
Wall Street Journal

“A fascinating, spicy, learned tale.”

—
New York Times

“Simon Winchester, in his splendid, oddball slice of history
The Professor and the Madman
, has come up with an irresistible hook…[an] utterly fascinating account of how a combination of scholarship and nationalism begat what would become the
Oxford English Dictionary
…. If the initial sections of [Winchester’s] tale have the appeal of a gaslight Victorian thriller, Winchester doesn’t leave it at that. He’s a superb historian because he’s a superb storyteller…. The strange richness of it all is enhanced by the flawless clarity of Winchester’s prose. Winchester, investigating an odd bit of background trivia about the making of one of the world’s great books, has the courage of his own curiosity. The elegant curio he has created is as enthralling as a good story can be and as informative as any history aspires to be.”

—
Salon

“One of the great strengths of this book is historical mise-en-scène, particularly for nineteenth-century America and England…[a] marvelous work of historical and philological imagination.”

—
National Review

“[Winchester] has the journalistic virtues, including a talent for following things up and delving into unexpected corners.”

—
New York Review of Books

“A fascinating tale of madness, the evolution of dictionaries, Victorian England, eccentric autodidacts, and the likeness of two men who appear to be opposites. [It] is a compelling slice of social and intellectual history as well. Out of a near-forgotten fragment of history, Simon Winchester has created an evocative chronicle of the healing powers of affection upon the turmoil of a troubled mind.”

—
Boston Globe

“Singular, astonishing, and well-told from start to finish.”

—
A Common Reader

Other Books by Simon Winchester

In Holy Terror

American Heartbeat

Their Noble Lordships

Stones of Empire

The Sun Never Sets

Prison Diary: Argentina

Hong Kong: Here Be Dragons

Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles

Pacific Rising

Small World

Pacific Nightmare

The River at the Center of the World

Credits

Illustrations by Philip Hood

Cover Design by Rick Pracher

Cover photograph, top courtesy of Jack Minor; bottom courtesy of Phillip Debay

Copyright

THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN. Copyright © 1998 by Simon Winchester. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2005 ISBN: 9780061807602

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Winchester, Simon.

     The professor and the madman: a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary/Simon Winchester.—1st ed.

          p. cm.
     Includes biographical references.
     ISBN 0-06-017596-6
ISBN-10: 0-06-083978-3 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-083978-9 (pbk.)

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