"The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857, took seventy years to complete, drew from tens of thousands of brilliant minds, and organized the sprawling language into 414,825 precise definitions. But hidden within the rituals of its creation is a fascinating and mysterious story - a story of two remarkable men whose strange twenty-year relationship lies at the core of this historic undertaking." "Professor James Murray, an astonishingly...

Based on the best-selling novel, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN tells the true tale of madness, genius, and obsession that led two remarkable men to leave their imprint on history with the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Murder is the most heinous form of criminal homicide. It is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. In English, murder is legally defined as the willful murder of a human being. #2 In Victorian London, even in a place as crime-ridden as Lambeth Marsh, the sound of gunshots was a rare event. The marsh was a dark and sinister place,...

Until a thousand years ago, no humans ventured into the Atlantic or imagined traversing its vastness. But once the first daring mariners successfully navigated to far shores, whether it was the Vikings, the Irish, the Chinese, Christopher Columbus in the north, or the Portuguese and the Spanish in the south, the Atlantic evolved in the world's growing consciousness of itself as an enclosed body of water bounded by the Americas to the West, and by...

In August 1883, a catastrophic volcanic eruption off the coast of Java was followed by a tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. The author brings new perspective to this iconic event, showing how it marked a change in East-West relations.

"A rare and wonderfully written book of literary detection that is heartbreaking as well as thrilling." -Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient In the tradition of Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman comes Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini-the charming, endlessly intriguing story of a collector's obsessive search for the personal effects of legendary author Marcel Proust. This fascinating true story introduces readers...

"In 1934, Webster's Second was the great gray eminence of American dictionaries, with 600,000 entries and numerous competitors but no rivals. It served as the all-knowing guide to the world of grammar and information, a kind of one-stop reference work. In 1961, Webster's Third came along and ignited an unprecedented controversy in America's newspapers, universities, and living rooms. The new dictionary's editor, Philip Gove, had overhauled Merriam's...

Winchester tells the fascinating story of an Oxfordshire blacksmith's orphaned son who discovered an unmistakable pattern in the rocks. From this, William Smith developed the first true geographical map following fossils and rock patterns, earning him a place in history as the father of modern geology. Line drawings. Maps throughout, 2 in color.

Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa, which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard...

A narrative account of the twentieth president's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.