From the NYT:
“…Madeline Kripke, who kept one of the world’s largest private collection of dictionaries, much of it crammed into her Greenwich Village apartment, could be defined this way: liberal [adj., as in giving unstintingly], compleat [adj., meaning having all the requisite skills] and sui generis [adj., in a class by itself].
Beginning with the Webster’s Collegiate that her parents gave her in the fifth grade, she accumulated an estimated 20,000 volumes as diverse as a Latin dictionary printed in 1502, Jonathan Swift’s 1722 booklet titled “The Benefits of Farting Explained,” and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 1980 guide to pickpocket slang….”
Seems to have been a wonderful life well lived, Kripke recently passed away. Full Obit here is written in hommage, and gives an insight into a quirky and well lived life - of someone in the pinnacle of her field.