author
Sir James Augustus Henry Murray
1837–1915
Best known as the driving force behind the early Oxford English Dictionary, this self-taught Scottish scholar helped turn the history of English words into a life's work. His story is one of enormous patience, curiosity, and a remarkable love of language.
1 Audiobook
The evolution of English lexicography
by Sir James Augustus Henry Murray
About the author
Born in Denholm, Scotland, in 1837, James Augustus Henry Murray left formal schooling at a young age but continued learning on his own, developing an extraordinary gift for languages and philology. That lifelong habit of independent study helped shape him into one of the great lexicographers of the English-speaking world.
Murray is most closely associated with the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1879 he became the dictionary's principal editor, and he spent the rest of his life guiding the huge project, organizing evidence from thousands of readers and tracing the history and meaning of words in painstaking detail. He worked on the dictionary until his death in Oxford in 1915, long before the full first edition was completed.
He was knighted in 1908, and his reputation has only grown with time. What makes Murray especially memorable is the scale of his achievement: with immense discipline and scholarship, he helped create a reference work that still stands as one of the great monuments of the English language.