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Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary
This unique and celebrated biography describes how a largely self-educated boy from a small village in Scotland entered the world of scholarship & became the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, & a lexicographer greater by far than Dr Johnson. It also provides an absorbing account of how the dictionary was written, the personalities of the people working on it & the endless difficulties which nearly led to the whole enterprise being abandoned.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 26, 2008
If you love the Oxford English Dictionary as much as I do (hello, fellow geek!), then you will love this biography of its Chief Editor.
May 7, 2021
Very thorough and biographical. I made tons of notes in this when I read it in college. This is similar to The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. Much more in-depth than The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Connected to this are The Story of English and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language which I also loved in college.
December 9, 2014
James Murray is a hero of mine, and his granddaughter tells his story eloquently. The other reviewers of this book have many excellent comments, but I would add that this book helps readers understand that dictionaries are living, breathing things. They are not static; not dry things that exist to look good on a shelf. Battles are waged (well, quiet battles) among lexicographers to determine which words are included and how the words should be described.
The book also conveys why the OED is such a charming product of its era -- the idea that every English word should be sought and captured seems so Victorian to me. While reading the book I often thought of X or Y English explorer, hacking through a jungle or groping blindly through a snowstorm to reach one of the poles. Murray's efforts to reach back into time and uncover the roots of every English word was, as an intellectual endeavor, equally daunting. A fun read!
The book also conveys why the OED is such a charming product of its era -- the idea that every English word should be sought and captured seems so Victorian to me. While reading the book I often thought of X or Y English explorer, hacking through a jungle or groping blindly through a snowstorm to reach one of the poles. Murray's efforts to reach back into time and uncover the roots of every English word was, as an intellectual endeavor, equally daunting. A fun read!
May 2, 2008
What do you read, my lord?
Words. Words. Words.
Words. Words. Words.
December 1, 2012
This biography of the first general editor of what became the Oxford English Dictionary, James Augustus Henry Murray (1837–1915), was written by his grand-daughter who, admittedly, has but two memories of her illustrious ancester. The story is dry-as-dust. There is no scandal here, no salacious tidbits, just the tale of a life substantially dominated by and publicly identified with the project of producing an historical dictionary of the English language, the world's greatest venture of its kind. While the very beginning and ending chapters of the biography say something of James Murray's personal life, the bulk of the book is about him in reference to the OED and such scandal as there is has to do with how he was substantially unrecognized and unremunerated until his last years.
November 22, 2015
A biography of the first Editor of the OED that covers Murray's wildly diverse interests as well as the immense difficulties he overcame to create the Dictionary. Written by his granddaughter with a Victorian discretion that has no use for Freudian speculation, the biography concentrates on Murray's public life and work, leavened with a sprinkling of private household anecdote.
In essence, it is a paean to amateur scholarship (all of Murray's university degrees were honorary), that warms the heart of an autodidact like me.
In essence, it is a paean to amateur scholarship (all of Murray's university degrees were honorary), that warms the heart of an autodidact like me.
March 24, 2022
Written by his granddaughter, this biography of James Murray is both fascinating and tedious. It's fascinating because Murray was an incredible person, phenomenally energetic, serious, and idealistic in a way that was both unique and typical of Victorian England. The largely self-educated son of a tailor in the Scottish border country, he rose to the editorship of the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the most ambitious academic projects of the late nineteenth century.
He didn't live to see the completion of his project, and, as the book's title implies, his single-minded devotion to it was often frustrating and stood in the way of his other life pursuits.
Murray grew up in a confident age of the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, an age that feels deeply foreign and distant today. He put together the dictionary with the assistance of many volunteers who collected words from every period by reading books and choosing sentences for quotation in the dictionary definitions. They sent thousands and thousands of slips of paper to Murray, who sorted through them with the help of a small staff. Everything was done by hand, from delivering the books to the volunteers through recording the sentences, sorting them, culling the most significant sentences, writing the long and extensive definitions of the words and their history, to setting them in type, and revising them.
The book became tedious for me because the last half of it is an account of the personal and financial struggles involved in keeping the project going for twenty years or so, until the university press finally got behind it completely. The men (mainly) involved in the project were an impressive and obstinate bunch, some of whom were prickly and difficult. Murray kept himself to the highest standards of scholarship and constantly fought against more practical men, who wanted to compromise in order to get the book out at last.
Although the book begins in a personal tone, it is largely objective. The author was the daughter of Murray's eldest son (of eleven children!), and she writes in adulation of her grandfather, whom she knew as a child, but she doesn't give much away about what it was like to be born into such a family.
He didn't live to see the completion of his project, and, as the book's title implies, his single-minded devotion to it was often frustrating and stood in the way of his other life pursuits.
Murray grew up in a confident age of the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, an age that feels deeply foreign and distant today. He put together the dictionary with the assistance of many volunteers who collected words from every period by reading books and choosing sentences for quotation in the dictionary definitions. They sent thousands and thousands of slips of paper to Murray, who sorted through them with the help of a small staff. Everything was done by hand, from delivering the books to the volunteers through recording the sentences, sorting them, culling the most significant sentences, writing the long and extensive definitions of the words and their history, to setting them in type, and revising them.
The book became tedious for me because the last half of it is an account of the personal and financial struggles involved in keeping the project going for twenty years or so, until the university press finally got behind it completely. The men (mainly) involved in the project were an impressive and obstinate bunch, some of whom were prickly and difficult. Murray kept himself to the highest standards of scholarship and constantly fought against more practical men, who wanted to compromise in order to get the book out at last.
Although the book begins in a personal tone, it is largely objective. The author was the daughter of Murray's eldest son (of eleven children!), and she writes in adulation of her grandfather, whom she knew as a child, but she doesn't give much away about what it was like to be born into such a family.
May 14, 2017
The story of James Murray, editor (and creator) of the Oxford English Dictionary. Having only seen the concise version of this seven-volume masterwork, I wasn't aware of the magnitude of the undertaking. A humble man with little formal education, Murray has a vision that even he didn't fully grasp at first. His insistence on maintaining high standards for the work led to a project that stretched over 50 years. On the other hand, if he hadn't done so, it would have been done so poorly, if at all, that is would not have survived into the 21st century as a definitive resource on the history of the English language. Written by a granddaughter from extensive research and access to all of his papers and letters.
May 26, 2017
I'm a huge fan of the Oxford English Dictionary, and this book has been on my to read pile for years.
This is an exhaustively researched biography of James Murray. Exhaustively, tediously, exhaustingly researched. The author is the granddaughter of James Murray and no doubt family members were fascinated by all those little details about his childhood and the childhoods of his children and every little time he felt slighted and every single friend who defended him and the kind of tricycle he rode etc. etc. etc. I was not fascinated by all that. A 100 page abridgment would probably have served my purposes.
I enjoyed the parts focused specifically on the OED.
This is an exhaustively researched biography of James Murray. Exhaustively, tediously, exhaustingly researched. The author is the granddaughter of James Murray and no doubt family members were fascinated by all those little details about his childhood and the childhoods of his children and every little time he felt slighted and every single friend who defended him and the kind of tricycle he rode etc. etc. etc. I was not fascinated by all that. A 100 page abridgment would probably have served my purposes.
I enjoyed the parts focused specifically on the OED.
April 23, 2023
An interesting read altho written much like a textbook....detailed and repetitive representing the arduous task of the making of the Dictionary.
I found the last chapter about Murray and his family very interesting and was hoping to have had more of this throughout the book.
I was surprised to find out late in the book that Murray had such a large family of eleven children. It was not apparent he had the time to spend with them as he did while devoting his energies to the Dictionary.
I found the last chapter about Murray and his family very interesting and was hoping to have had more of this throughout the book.
I was surprised to find out late in the book that Murray had such a large family of eleven children. It was not apparent he had the time to spend with them as he did while devoting his energies to the Dictionary.
November 26, 2019
It is strange to contrast this book with The Professor and the Madman by Winchester, both dealing with the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. this book is drier, if not better researched, at least more carefully annotated and footnoted.
But Winchester's was much easier to read, more like a novel than a biography. I feel a certain satisfaction after reading this, as if I'd worked hard, while Winchester's was a guilty escape.
But Winchester's was much easier to read, more like a novel than a biography. I feel a certain satisfaction after reading this, as if I'd worked hard, while Winchester's was a guilty escape.
May 19, 2022
Surprisingly good and certainly worth reading if you’re interested in the topic or in scholarship, amateurism, or Victorian life. The author’s writing is clear and vivid and her analysis is sharp. The book is a terrific reminder that language is a living, changing thing.
September 1, 2018
It took me a while to get this read, but my Reference prof in Library school talked about dictionaries one class period and I was enthralled. I had to get this book and read Mr. Murray’s story! He was the editor of that massive Oxford English Dictionary and his method for collecting words was genius. Humbling to learn that the man who contributed the most words (you had to research its provenance all the way back to its first use!), 10,000, was living in an insane asylum in Canada.
July 17, 2021
Outstanding, one of the most enjoyable biographies that I have read.
Want to read
February 3, 2022OED
November 9, 2024
A good biography of the OED’s first editor.
June 26, 2019
To my mind, James Murray was a model of what scholars should be about: individuals who combine broad love of learning with single-minded concentration on the task at hand, men who know their minds well enough to stand on principle but who are humble enough to retain a simple faith in God.
The task of Murray’s granddaughter, K. M. Elisabeth Murray (1909-1998), in writing this now classic biography was made the easier by the fact that Murray was a genuinely good man, a man who loved his large family and who was, in turn, revered by them. Although Elisabeth Murray does not ignore her ancestor’s occasional excitability and depression or his attempts to over-dramatize and exaggerate his plight as editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, she rarely has to apologize for any of his specific actions. James Murray tried desperately to take the ethical high road. In the words of the psalmist, he was a person who “swears to his own hurt and does not change.”
Wonderfully readable, the book seems to bog down only where the bog appears necessary, the “slough of despond” that too often bounded repeated negotiations for producing a dictionary so mammoth that even the experienced Murray seriously misjudged its final size. Otherwise, this book is the model life of a model scholar, a self-made man who ennobled both philology and his descendants with his determination to bend his life’s energy toward a worthy goal.
The task of Murray’s granddaughter, K. M. Elisabeth Murray (1909-1998), in writing this now classic biography was made the easier by the fact that Murray was a genuinely good man, a man who loved his large family and who was, in turn, revered by them. Although Elisabeth Murray does not ignore her ancestor’s occasional excitability and depression or his attempts to over-dramatize and exaggerate his plight as editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, she rarely has to apologize for any of his specific actions. James Murray tried desperately to take the ethical high road. In the words of the psalmist, he was a person who “swears to his own hurt and does not change.”
Wonderfully readable, the book seems to bog down only where the bog appears necessary, the “slough of despond” that too often bounded repeated negotiations for producing a dictionary so mammoth that even the experienced Murray seriously misjudged its final size. Otherwise, this book is the model life of a model scholar, a self-made man who ennobled both philology and his descendants with his determination to bend his life’s energy toward a worthy goal.
September 8, 2017
I read this in 1987, so my memories of it are vaguer than I would like; I was studying for my MLS at the time, so the subject matter caught my attention.
I got my copy of The Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition (with magnifying glass included) back in the mid 1970s, when I was in High School; I think it was a Book of the Month Club premium for joining, and was why I joined, to obtain it. I still have it, I still use it. Learning about its creation just makes it that much more valuable to me.
I learned a lot about the hows and whys of the creation of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which became known as the Oxford English Dictionary. The crowdsourcing of the research (although they didn't use that term, it was coined in 2005, crowdsourcing is clearly what it was), that most of those involved were not actually Academics, but rather interested amateurs, the long struggle for consistency in how the citations were formatted by the volunteers for ease of adding to the Dictionary, the need to find volunteers with differing interests so that a wider pool of documents was accessed, so many things involved with a project such as this. There are many Transcription projects currently running that are modeled after this, knowingly or not.
And I learned about the man who took the dying project and made it actually happen, James Murray. Caught in the Web of Words is not just a good title, it is an accurate title, as James Murray, once he got involved with this project, was trapped by it; he couldn't let go of it, it consumed him. It became that which his life revolved around. I can't really understand what that would be like, as nothing in my life has become that central a focus. But I took to heart the message that it doesn't take Academic credentials to make contributions to Academia that can change the way the world works.
One of these days I'll read it again; thirty years later, it's still in my personal library.
I got my copy of The Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition (with magnifying glass included) back in the mid 1970s, when I was in High School; I think it was a Book of the Month Club premium for joining, and was why I joined, to obtain it. I still have it, I still use it. Learning about its creation just makes it that much more valuable to me.
I learned a lot about the hows and whys of the creation of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which became known as the Oxford English Dictionary. The crowdsourcing of the research (although they didn't use that term, it was coined in 2005, crowdsourcing is clearly what it was), that most of those involved were not actually Academics, but rather interested amateurs, the long struggle for consistency in how the citations were formatted by the volunteers for ease of adding to the Dictionary, the need to find volunteers with differing interests so that a wider pool of documents was accessed, so many things involved with a project such as this. There are many Transcription projects currently running that are modeled after this, knowingly or not.
And I learned about the man who took the dying project and made it actually happen, James Murray. Caught in the Web of Words is not just a good title, it is an accurate title, as James Murray, once he got involved with this project, was trapped by it; he couldn't let go of it, it consumed him. It became that which his life revolved around. I can't really understand what that would be like, as nothing in my life has become that central a focus. But I took to heart the message that it doesn't take Academic credentials to make contributions to Academia that can change the way the world works.
One of these days I'll read it again; thirty years later, it's still in my personal library.
April 21, 2014
Seems amazing to me that more people don't know who James Murray was. And I have even studied dialectology at the graduate level and was never alerted to the fact that Murray was probably the most significant philologist of English of the 19th century. It even seems to me--some very photo-finish timelines might be necessary here--that he independently discovered Grimm's Law while tracing the separate origins of Scots and English English to Anglo-Saxon. What he did at the OED might count, by many measures, as the most vast and significant contribution by one person toward linguistic research ever. Unlikely ever to be topped. The book is good too: written by a granddaughter of the subject, though she is coy enough to never mention which of Murray's children is her parent. Next I suppose it is time to read Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman. W. C. Minor is mentioned only glancingly in this book. In fact, there are several prolific OED contributors that deserve full-length treatment.
September 5, 2010
Outstanding work. A really tough read for me, but well worth the effort if you are interested in the greatest dictionary of all time. Murray was a driven (thankfully) and uncompromising (thankfully) man managed to get published a work that would never be profitable (and it only took 40 years to get it done). I need some lighter reading now.
August 23, 2010
This book is really biographical. If that's what you're looking for it's a thorough history of James A.H. Murray's life. If you care more about the dictionary's inception read The Professor and the Madman.
December 19, 2012
Finally! This book is not an easy read. The story itself is interesting but I didn't enjoy the writer's style. The only reason I kept going was because the subject of compiling and editing the Oxford dictionary was fascinating to me. 3 stars.
July 29, 2016
okay, I got bored and didn't finish it. (more and more the story of my reading these days.) The first part about James Murray as a precocious child who was interested in all kinds of learning was inspiring.
November 18, 2010
after reading this book. Murray is one of my heroes.
November 16, 2014
Wonderful. She does a great job of explaining how the dictionary process worked and is even-handed in dealing with all the battles.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews