Caught in the Web of Words

Regular price €41.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=K.M. Elisabeth Murray
Author_K.M. Elisabeth Murray
Category=CFM
Category=DNBH
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction

Product details

  • ISBN 9780300089196
  • Weight: 435g
  • Dimensions: 127 x 197mm
  • Publication Date: 01 Mar 2001
  • Publisher: Yale University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns
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)
K.M. Elisabeth Murray is James Murray's granddaughter and was formerly Principal of Bishop Otter College of Education, Chichester, England.

More from this author