 It tells the story of the making of the "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, William Chester Minor, a retired United States Army surgeon.Minor was, at the time, imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, near the village of Crowthorne in Berkshire, England.The 'professor' of the American title is the chief editor of the "OED" during most of the project, Sir James Murray.