Alexander the Corrector : the tormented genius whose Cruden’s Concordance unwrote the Bible by Julia Keay
A fascinating biography of the guy who wrote a 2.5 million word concordance of the bible. (It’s been in print since first published in 1737.) Born in Aberdeen, he knew things that were dangerous to some very powerful people. Cruden was sent to madhouses several times in his life, but the author makes a very convincing case that he wasn’t mad at all, but rather the victim of an extremely powerful Presbyterian (of course!) minister who had him committed because he (Cruden) knew that the minister’s daughter, Elizabeth, was pregnant by her brother. This would have destroyed the minister’s career, so Cruden needed to be put out of the way. This set the stage for a life full of trouble, and several other confinements for similar reasons. Another time, he’d made friends with a man and wife, the man died, he proposed marriage to the widow after a suitable interval, but she was already betrothed to someone else. That someone else had him committed again to a private madhouse in Bethnel Green.
Keay also gives some insight to the difficulty she had in researching the book. Issues which are familiar to anyone who has done any sort of genealogical research. Nearly everyone of consequence in the book was named Alexander. And infant mortality at the time was so high, people tended to reuse names for later children. So if “James” died in infancy, he might very well have a brother “James” born a few years later. Such things make it difficult to keep things straight. But she does an excellent job showing that the brother and sister were also husband and wife.
