Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary

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Paperback: 462 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (March 1, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780300089196
ISBN-13: 978-0300089196
ASIN: 0300089198
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

"A biography that possesses many of the virtues of James Murray himself— grace, humor, intelligence, curiosity, and scholarship." -- Time"A moving and dramatic story . . . sometimes tragic, often comic, ultimately triumphant." -- Times, London Product Description This unique and celebrated biography describes how a largely self-educated boy from a small village in Scotland entered the world of scholarship and became the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and a great lexicographer. It also provides an absorbing account of how the dictionary was written, the personalities of the people working on it, and the endless difficulties that nearly led to the whole enterprise being abandoned. "It is a magnificent story of a magnificent man, one of the finest biographies of the twentieth century, as its subject was one of the finest human beings of the nineteenth."-Anthony Burgess "A moving and dramatic story . . . sometimes tragic, often comic, ultimately triumphant."-Times (London) "A biography that possesses many of the virtues of James Murray himself-grace, humor, intelligence, curiosity, and scholarship."-Time "In her vivid biography, Murray's granddaughter brings his remarkable personality to life, and provides an unexpectedly fascinating account of the OED's long and difficult birth."-Times Literary Supplement "A gripping, engaging story; endearing, too. The daily round of a big Victorian family, with its jokes, games, and treasured seaside holidays, is entrancingly evoked."-Sunday Times (London) Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary