The Dictionary of Lost Words

Brought to you by Penguin. In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme seizes the word and hides it in an old wooden trunk that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women's experiences often go unrecorded. She begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set when the women's suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It's a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape our experience of the world. © Pip Williams 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

About the Author :
Pip Williams was born in London, grew up in Sydney and now calls the Adelaide Hills home. She is the author of the international number one bestseller, The Dictionary of Lost Words, described by The Times as 'an extraordinary, charming novel'. It was also a New York Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and has been translated into over thirty languages to worldwide acclaim. Pip's second novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, sprang from her discovery of archival footage of women who worked in the bindery of Oxford University Press during the early twentieth century. When she tried to find out more about them, there was almost nothing. Despite their important role in the production of books, barely a word has been written about them until now.

Review :
A brilliant book about women and words - tender, moving and profound An extraordinary, charming novel... Williams pins a whole, rich life to the page Poignant, perfectly paced... a beautifully nuanced work I absolutely loved this book! Thought-provoking, touching and subtly romantic; I finished it in tears Williams's satisfying novel animates a fascinating history and imbues it with a feminist slant, asking how words mean different things to men and women This lovely slice of historical fiction... A highly enjoyable resonant tale about the hidden and frequently gendered stories behind the words we take for granted A captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded A gorgeous, unique read This immersive, scrupulously researched debut provides poignant commentary on the ownership of language An enchanting story about love, loss and the power of language, what gets recorded and what gets forgotten. Set at a time when women's voices were clamouring more than ever to be heard, it moved me greatly to think how history is skewed by those who hold power -- and how important it is that novels like this redress that balance