Perspective

The perspective of The Professor and the Madman combines the perspectives of a mystery novelist, historian and lexicographer. Simon Winchester is a British journalist and an author who spends his time between the United States and Scotland. He wrote for the Guardian as a foreign correspondent for twenty years, and also during the time he wrote numerous books that were of interest to him.

Since he is a journalist, he knows how to make the text interesting to the reader and writes with excitement, giving off the perspective of a mystery novelist, particularly due to how he organizes the book around suspense points. Winchester is not a professional historian but knows how to give careful attention to detail and to clearly employ reliable sources of information. Finally, apparently for the book Winchester acquired some interest in the study of words, lexicography specifically, since the book often discusses the...