The Professor & the Madman

When the editors of the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY put out a call during the late 19th century for "men of letters" to contribute entries, hundreds of responses came forth. One contributor, Dr. W. C. Minor, an expatriate and Civil War veteran was remarkably prolific sending thousands of neat, handwritten quotations from his home near Oxford. Professor James Murray, the distinguished editor of the OED project invited Minor to visit Oxford and celebrate his work, but the offer was regularly and mysteriously refused. For two decades the two men maintained a close relationship only through correspondence. Finally, in 1896 a puzzled Murray set out to visit him. It was then that Murray learned the truth about Minor - that, in addition to being a masterful wordsmith, Minor was also a murderer, clinically insane and locked up in England's harshest asylum for criminal lunatics.