The bizarre and fascinating story of Alexander Cruden, who single-handedly compiled the monumental dictionary/index/gazetteer to the Bible, Cruden's Concordance -- still going strong 260 years later.Cruden's Concordance to the Bible was a monumental achievement at 2.5 million words, it is four times the length of the Bible itself and in nearly three hundred years it has never been superseded. Yet Alexander Cruden is remembered today not so much for his mighty work as for the widespread belief that he was mad.Born in Aberdeen in 1699, as a young man he was cast into an asylum for reasons that at the time were considered too shocking to reveal. The scandal ruined his plans to enter the Church, and he fled to London, where he worked as a private tutor and then as a proof-corrector before becoming Bookseller by Royal Warrant to Queen Caroline (wife of George II). In 1737, weeks after completing his Concordance, he was back in the madhouse, abducted by a jealous rival for the affections of a rich widow and committed to a private asylum. After three months he managed to escape through a window. Some years later he was again incarcerated, this time after a dispute with his landlady. Each | 
