Symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations, disorganized speech, and erratic behavior—exactly what William Chester Minor experienced prior to his arrest. The retired U.S. Army surgeon had moved to England after serving in the American Civil War. He sought relief from his condition, but it only worsened, leading to the murder of an innocent man.
Just when his caretakers thought his case hopeless, Minor began a correspondence with an Oxford academic whose love for literature saved his life. How did a retired officer and an academic first shake hands? And what became of their unusual partnership?
United Through a Dictionary
It took over 50 years to publish the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The project began in 1857 at a meeting of the London Philological Society, where Richard Chevenix Trench, Dean of Westminster, praised a dictionary as a “historical monument, the history of a nation contemplated from one point of view.” The dictionary would collect every known word in the English language--by hand. It also needed to trace the development of each word’s meaning, from its earliest usage to the present day. How could such a colossal project come to fruition?
A humble autodidact, Murray loved his work. He had an “impassioned thirst for all kinds of learning.” From a very young age, he taught himself about geology and botany, hunted down textbooks in old libraries, and interviewed anyone he thought would have good stories to tell. But all were minor interests compared to his love of languages. For Murray, words weren’t just symbols on a page. The variety of meaning he found through his explorations of ancient and modern literature gave him a glimpse into the wonderful breadth of the human imagination.
War, Murder, and Acquittal
Minor was 29 when he graduated from Yale Medical School in 1863. Shortly after, he joined the Army. Yet it wasn’t until May 1864 that he was scarred for life. After one of the bloodiest episodes of the Civil War at the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia, the doctor was ordered to brand with an white-hot iron rod the letter D, for “deserter,” unto the cheek of a soldier who had attempted desertion.
The experience compounded Minor’s traumas from a complicated past of childhood abuse and sex addiction. Paranoia and paralyzing hallucinations began to trouble him daily. He became distrustful of his closest colleagues, suspecting conspiracies against him where in fact there were none. Nightmares of war and persecution often woke him up, except that in his mind, they were real.
The army discharged Minor with a pension in 1871. His family suggested he embark on a grand tour of Europe, after which he settled in a seedy part of London. Everyone thought the trip would help him heal, but his condition did not improve.
Finding Purpose in a Bookshelf
It was in the damp, gloomy hallways of the Broadmoor, 7 years into his incarceration, that Minor first read a pamphlet signed by “James Murray.” The appeal invited volunteers to read as many books as possible, especially from the 1700s, and record the meanings of a lengthy list of words.The pamphlet had made its way into Broadmoor serendipitously. After an initial phase of justified hatred, Mrs. Merrett began to visit her husband’s murderer. The more she learned about his troubled past, the more she came to understand him. Although their monthly meetings never developed into a real friendship, the doctor looked forward to spending time with the only person who seemed willing to listen to him.
Mrs. Merrett understood how important reading had been in giving Minor temporary relief from his illness, so she offered to bring him books, bypassing England’s slow mailing system. The most significant token to come out of their encounters was a pamphlet, which she had unknowingly carried with her.
Minor had been given access to a modest library as part of his treatment, which was slowly filling with Mrs. Merrett’s deliveries. When he saw the pamphlet, he responded immediately, expressing enthusiasm for the project. In a matter of weeks, the surgeon became one of the most productive volunteers. He spent every waking moment sifting through books in search of words, frantically turning pages, fully immersed in whatever text he happened to be reading. Popular works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the like had already been well documented, but Minor read them anyway, in addition to obscure but equally intriguing titles like Thomas Wilson’s 1551 “The Rule of Reason.”
This all-consuming activity quickly became more than a mere search for terms and definitions. In the fettered solitude of his chambers, the troubled doctor found relief through reading literature, from the greatest books to their lesser known counterparts. At Oxford, Murray’s team received tens of thousands of paper slips, often with more than one quotation per word. All were signed “W. C. Minor.”
Although he occasionally experienced “good” days free of hallucinations, his condition seemed better only when he immersed himself in reading. His improvement was so significant that Murray never suspected he'd been a hospital patient for over two decades.
Flying Freely on the Wings of Words
Despite her willingness to approach Minor, Mrs. Merrett never recovered from her husband’s murder. She eventually lost interest in the American expat, took to drinking, and sadly passed away of liver failure a few years after their last encounter.Murray noticed Broadmoor’s brutal methods, so he petitioned Winston Churchill, who at the time was England’s Home Secretary, to let Minor return to the United States. In 1910, the American was transferred to the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington. Although it was a cutting-edge facility, where patients had access to nature and fresh food, Minor did not recover. His hallucinations became longer and more frequent. His life now lacked a clear purpose. He didn’t read nearly as much, and his correspondence with old friends had stopped. He died peacefully in his sleep at 85 years old.
Murray continued to work on the project after his friend’s departure, though he, too, was delayed and eventually taken by illness. In 1927, eight years after Murray’s passing, the first complete OED was published, including 414,825 words and 1,827,306 illustrative quotations. Yet few remembered Minor, who was buried in a slum across the Atlantic—an unbefitting fate for one of the most significant contributors to one of the finest dictionaries ever produced.
In 2018, Farhad Safinia directed a movie based on Winchester’s book. Although the movie simplifies this complex story, it does offer a noteworthy statement on the power of reading. In a moment of lucidity, Minor explains to Mrs. Merrett why literature is vital. “It’s freedom,” he tells her; “I can fly out of this place on the backs of books. I’ve gone to the end of the world on the wings of words. When I read, no one is after me. When I read, I am the one who is chasing, chasing after God.”
