The Surgeon of Crowthorne cover art

The Surgeon of Crowthorne

The Murder, Mystery and Madness of the Oxford English Dictionary

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The Surgeon of Crowthorne

By: Simon Winchester
Narrated by: Simon Winchester
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About this listen

The compiling of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental task. It took 50 years, even with the help of numerous contributors. Among the most prolific was William Chester Minor, who sent editor James Murray thousands of extracts.

On many occasions, Murray invited this mysterious correspondent to Oxford, but the invitation was always declined. Finally stirred by curiosity, Murray himself went to visit Minor. What he found was shocking: Minor lived in Broadmoor asylum. He was a millionaire, an expert on the English language, and a qualified surgeon, but he was imprisoned as a lunatic for murder.

©1998 Simon Winchester (P)2005 W. F. Howes Ltd Historical True Crime Words, Language & Grammar

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All stars
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Wonderfully researched, written, and read story. I got it on a whim but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Fascinating from start to finish

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I fell upon this title almost by accident when looking for something else, serendipity indeed. This is a very different book to those I normally choose and had opened up a whole new genre I am keen to explore in the future. Well narrated as well as written.

More interesting than I expected.

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I have over 1500 audiobooks and some of the narrations are shocking , but to have Simon narrate the book himself I think is brilliant for an author to read his own book who better to tell the story I’d already known the story before the book was written so when it was originally released I bought it when the audiobook came out I listen to it and I thought it was brilliant again there has been two versions but I do prefer Simons , and with respect to the negative reviews I would simply say you have no comprehension of how difficult it is to narrate a book and to get into character and to be able to slip from one character to another we just read the books or listen to them but to narrate them It’s far more difficult than you think please also bear in mind this book is more of a true story so it’s not adventure story it’s a narration of a fact and should be seen as such I personally would recommend this to anybody

There is no reason to criticise the narration

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Really well researched, written and read by the author. Highly recommend. Wish he read more books, he has one of the most professional voices I have heard on audio books

Brilliant

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The author's grasp of english accents does not alas match that of his subjects...let alone an attempt at Spanish that is pure Les Dawson in a hair net & curlers, half mouthing "Me Waterworks" - screwed up face and all. Once again a moving, thoughtful and excellent story suffers his non mastery of regional or any accents, he slips in and out of some vague west country U.S. east coast Scottish lilt..otherwise it's excellent....for a buffoon.

oooh arrr! It's Buffoon not Baffoon you BUFFOON!

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I felt a bit ripped off... as I'd already read this book when it was called 'The professor and the mad mad' . I guess it was my fault for not reading the description 🤔

good but

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interesting history. fine narration, I'm putting a review in so it helps with algorithm but you have to write 15 words....

Good

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