At a grand party to celebrate completion of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary the Prime Minister of the day called the achievement ‘the greatest enterprise of its kind in history’; and The Times greeted the second edition as ‘The greatest work in dictionary making ever undertaken’.

So what’s the story? How did it start? What preceded it? Who did the work? Why did it take so long? How did Oxford get involved? And why is the work never finished?

The tour will answer all of these questions and more by taking you on a unique meander through the city. This will include one of the original work rooms in which the OED was created, three colleges whose alumni produced dictionaries, and the absorbing Oxford University Press Museum. It will also provide a glimpse into the fascinating lives of those who made the Dictionary happen.