The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Author: Pip Williams

Genre: Historical fiction

Format: Digital Purchase (Kindle)

Publish Date: April 2021

Read: April 2023

Favorite Quote: Words are our tools of resurrection.

Story Synopsis: The Dictionary of Lost Words is the story of Esme Nicoll when the Oxford English Dictionary was created. Esme’s story begins as a toddler with her father, a lexicographer working on collecting words for the first dictionary. In a garden shed called The Scriptorium, Esme’s father and others spend their days sorting through quotes and citations to determine what words make it into the dictionary. As a small child, she plays under the table and begins sneaking words out and saving them in a trunk. The story follows Esme through her teenage years, then into adulthood, where she works on the dictionary while England’s suffrage movement grows and World War I begins. Through love and loss, Esme collects words that are deemed unfit for the dictionary in hopes of creating her own dictionary of these discarded words.

Why does this book beguile? The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams is a beautiful story about words and how words have different meanings and contexts for men and women. This story is also about the biases that shape us, both overt and unconscious, and how language allows us to communicate, grow, and evolve. This novel is so rich and detailed as it chronicles the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the eyes of one woman coming of age while England, too, comes of age.

Rating: 5/5

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Reading Guide: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams