A MADMAN'S MASTERPIECE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 18

A MADMAN'S MASTERPIECE

This year sees the bicentenary oil the publication ,of one of the world's "remarkable books—"Cruden's Concordance of the Bible," says the "Manchester Guardian." It is remarkable not only for its amazing range but also because it was the masterpiece of a mail who for periods at least was mad. Alexander Cruden, Aberdeen born, London bookseller, and afterwards a printer's proof-reader, was on four occasions certified and confined as insane. Yet he is said to have compiled his great work in little more than a 1 year. Few words in the Bible escaped his net. He called himself "Apothecary to the Parsons," no empty boast, and in recent years he has been a source of much help to solvers of crossword problems. Although his concordance was immediately successful and three editions were published in his lifetime, he is said never to.'have made more than £40 a year out of it. In later ■years Cruden was not content with being a corrector of. the. Press, but.described himself as "Alexander the Corrector —of Moral?," and warned fiercely against what he considered to bo the Jrreligion of his day.