Think You Have Troubles?

Thomas Cooper was born in Oxford, England in 1517. After receiving his degree from Oxford University, he practiced as a physician. In 1548, he began his literary career when he edited a Latin dictionary.

In 1549, Cooper began working on a comprehensive thesaurus. During the next eight years, he systematically chronicled 33,000 entries. Now Cooper had a wife who became jealous of his work. One day in 1557, she went into Thomas’ study and burned all of his notes on the pretence that he would kill himself with study.

Arriving home soon afterward, Thomas asked who had caused this destruction.His wife boldly replied that she had burned his notes.“Oh Dinah, Dinah, thou hast given me a world of trouble” sighed Thomas.

He then sat down and for the next eight years he recreated the notes destroyed by his wife. In 1565 appeared the first edition of his greatest work, Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, and this was followed by three other editions.

Queen Elizabeth was greatly pleased with the Thesaurus, generally known as Cooper’s Dictionary and in 1571 she made him the bishop of Lincoln.

He may have pleased the Queen, but his wife was upset.