Murray Scriptorium

The Murray Scriptorium is a pilot edition of the letters and papers of Sir James Augustus Henry Murray (1837–1915), chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 until his death. In his efforts to trace the origins and meanings of words, Murray sent so many letters to authors, scholars, and experts in various industries and professions that the Post Office specially installed a pillar box outside his house at 78 Banbury Road, Oxford, where it stands to this day.

Based principally on manuscripts in Oxford's Bodleian Library, this edition of Murray's letters is being undertaken by Professor Charlotte Brewer (Hertford College, Oxford) and Dr Stephen Turton (Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge). The pilot, which is the first stage of Brewer and Turton's Murray Papers editing project, has been funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant. Its website is being built by Huber Digital and will be launched at murrayscriptorium.org some time in 2022.

An initial selection of the project's findings, ‘The Oxford English Dictionary and the Public’, is on display 15 April–3 July 2022 in Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford. Admission free.

For more information, please see the initial announcement by the Oxford English Faculty and a more detailed update by Brewer on Examining the OED. An article on the project's aims and development was published in Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America in 2021; a preprint can be accessed here.