The Dictionary of Lost Words: A Novel

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(as of Jul 31, 2024 00:58:54 UTC – Details)

New York Times Bestseller • Reese’s Book Club Selection • “Delightful… [a] A fascinating and cleverly subversive fictional paean to the real women who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary but are little known.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A brilliant novel about the power of language to elevate or repress.”—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book

Esme was born into a world of words. Motherless but filled with an irrepressible curiosity, she spent her childhood in a garden cottage in Oxford, where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers were collecting words for the first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place was beneath the sorting table, out of sight and out of hearing. One day, a slip of paper with the word “slave girl” fluttered beneath the table. She picked it up, learned that the word meant “slave girl,” and began collecting other words that had been discarded or overlooked by the lexicographers.

As she gets older, Esme realizes that the words and meanings associated with the experiences of women and people in general are often not recorded. So she begins an earnest search for words for her own dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. To do this, she must leave the protected world of college and venture out to meet the people who will fill those pages with words.

Set at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the First World War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost story, hidden between the lines of history written by men. Inspired by true events, author Pip Williams delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. A delightful, lyrical and thought-provoking work, The Dictionary of Lost Words celebrates the power of words and language to shape our world.

Winner of the Australian Book Industry Award