The Meaning of Everything

Acknowledgements

The idea that I should write this book came first from Alysoun Owen, an editor at Oxford University Press who had once read The Surgeon of Crowthorne and put it to me that since in that story I had written what was essentially a footnote to history, would I now care to try writing the history itself? It seemed a splendid idea, and it would have made for a pleasing symmetry to deliver the manuscript to Alysoun in due course—but for the fact that she took off on maternity leave shortly after I had begun work on the book. She was succeeded by the admirably competent Rebecca Collins, to whom I am extremely grateful; but since this book was in essence Alysoun's idea, I owe her a very great deal for first getting me involved in what turned out to be the most enjoyable of tasks.

Enjoyable and stimulating though the work may have been, its complexities would have tried me sorely had not Elizabeth Knowles—an old OUP friend with whom I have been in touch ever since she advised me on early drafts of the W. C. Minor story—agreed to help with the telling of this tale also. She advised me both on the book's overall tone and structure, and on the finer details relating to lexicography and etymology. Philip Durkin, an expert on etymology and a philologist at the OED, was most helpful in navigating the minefields of Chapter 1, and worked with Elizabeth on such vexing matters as the supposed origins of words like periwinkle, skirt, and ketchup.

It is to Peter Gilliver, a senior lexicographer at the OED, that I owe perhaps the greatest debt. Peter's eternal enthusiasm for the Dictionary and its makers, and his fascination with the eccentricities of its making, should by rights have led him to write this book himself. But his current continuing work on the OED's third edition is an all-absorbing task, and that Peter felt able to step aside from these private ambitions to help me—by illuminating the unlit nooks and crannies of the story, and by digging out stories of ageold lexicographical conundrums that made the telling of this story such fun—is something for which I will always be grateful.

Martin Maw, the OUP Archivist, was helpful and hospitable in equal measure. No request, whether for a long-forgotten picture or a long-lost quotation slip, ever managed to fox him, and he responded to my Ypres-like barrage of queries and demands with endlessly good cheer. It is to his former colleague Jenny McMorris that this book is dedicated: we all miss her greatly, but few more so than Martin, and I hope that he will infer from the dedication my gratitude to the OUP archives team more generally, even though, of course, we all wish to memorialize Jenny in person.

Madeline Kripke kindly copied many rare papers and documents from her immense collection of dictionaryalia, and offered much sage advice.

I am grateful to Robert Faber at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for asking contributors involved in preparing OEDrelated essays to let me see, in advance, some of what they had written; this was a favour that proved to be a very great help.

Sarah Barrett copy-edited the manuscript from her Somerset home, and did so with speed, finesse, and great charm; and Carolyn Garwes prepared the index.

My London agent Bill Hamilton, of A. M. Heath, dealt with the very particular publishing idiosyncrasies of so venerable a firm as OUP; and Peter Matson, of my New York agent Sterling Lord Literistic, was unfailingly helpful and supportive over such fascinating complications as made it across the Atlantic. Also in New York I am especially grateful to my long-time friend Casper Grathwohl of OUP for his wise counsel during the editing and publishing process.

As so often, I owe a great deal to my son Rupert Winchester, who worked tirelessly at the OUP archives, and at the London Library, through all stages of the making of this book. He is the stuff of which any father would be most proud.

I wrote this book in a little barn on my farm in Massachusetts during what turned out to be one of the wildest, coldest, and darkest of New England winters in living memory. But I was kept warm and content through it all by my partner Elaine, and it is a tribute to her determination, support, and comforting kindness that this book was finished, on time, with both of us looking happily back at a winter exceedingly well spent.

S.B.A.W. Sandisfield June 2003