The Surgeon of Crowthorne: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words is a book by Simon Winchester.

It tells the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary and one of its most useful early contributors, Dr. W.C. Minor. A retired United States Army surgeon, Minor was at the time imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, near the small town of Crowthorne in Berkshire.

The American edition is called The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (ISBN 006099486X).

External reference

• The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words, Simon Winchester (Viking, 1998) (ISBN 0670878626 hbk, ISBN 0140271287 pbk)