Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary

Sarah Ogilvie
3.86/5 (1009 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others. 

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.  

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.
Format:
Hardcover
Pages:
368 pages
Publication:
2023
Publisher:
Knopf
Edition:
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
0593536401
ISBN13:
9780593536407
kindle Asin:

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary

Sarah Ogilvie
3.86/5 (1009 ratings)
Read Download
A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others. 

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.  

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.
Format:
Hardcover
Pages:
368 pages
Publication:
2023
Publisher:
Knopf
Edition:
Language:
eng
ISBN10:
0593536401
ISBN13:
9780593536407
kindle Asin:

More Books

Intervals

Marianne Brooker

The Britannias: An Archipelago's Tale

Alice Albinia

Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI

Madhumita Murgia

Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death

Laura Cumming

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power

Leah Redmond Chang

The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club

Christopher de Hamel

The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Simon Winchester

In Defence of the Act

Effie Black

The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives

Adam Smyth

A Flat Place: Moving Through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma

Noreen Masud

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah

Charles King

A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria

Caroline Crampton