Non-Fiction Book Discussion: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
Date: 01/26/2026
Time: 06:30 pm-07:30 pm
Location: Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, Multipurpose Room, 201 N. Mulberry, Mount Vernon, OH
Organizer: Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County
Cost: Free
Contact and more info:
mvknoxpubliclibrary@gmail.com
https://www.knox.net

About the event:

Masterfully researched and eloquently written, this book is a tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, ranks among the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As thousands of volunteers submitted definitions, its overseeing committee discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand of entries on his own.

When the committee attempted to honor his effort, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, a veteran of the American Civil War , was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

It turns out that lexicography* can be a lot more interesting than most of us expect.

Read the book.  Then come talk about it.

 

* Look the word up at your local library.  Friendly librarians love to help people do things like that.