Esme’s world consists of her father and words. As a child, she spends her days with her father and his associates in the Scriptorium, hiding under a table while they work on the beginnings of the Oxford English Dictionary. She collects dropped slips of paper containing words, and eventually adds other words, garnered from common folk, to her own collection. Lizzie, her servant and companion, watches out for Esme as she grows up. The women’s suffrage movement as well as The Great War are a part of the story. The writing of the Oxford Dictionary is quite interesting, but it takes a backseat to Esme’s life, and especially her foray into the woman’s suffrage movement as she explores the place of women in that particular timeframe. The novel has some surprising, to me, aspects, including Esme’s collection of naughty words. I would have liked the novel better had I liked Esme better, or if the novel had stayed more with the writing of the dictionary and less on the historical aspects of that period. The writing was good, but the book was a bit of a disappointment. ( )

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, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case 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. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, 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 the world and our experience of it. ( )

Spanning the years from 1886 to 1928, Pip Williams's "The Dictionary of Lost Words" is a coming-of-age story and a paean to the English language. Esme Nicoll is a motherless child who learns to love lexicography from "Da," her doting father, Harry, who is working on the Oxford English Dictionary under the supervision of Dr. James Murray. Harry and his colleagues rely on thousands of contributions from volunteers, who send in quotations from books and newspapers that show how words are used in various contexts. When Esme was small, she huddled under the table where her father sat, and imagined what it would be like to collect and define words like her Da.

This impressive debut novel is a literate, thought-provoking, and poignant work of fiction. Thanks to Williams's evocative prose and insight into child psychology, we identify with Esme, who relies on Lizzie Lester, the Murray family's maid, as well as Edith Thompson, a friend of her father, for advice, comfort, and affection. Furthermore, throughout the book, we are treated to a colorful description of how Dr. Murray and his staff carried out their arduous task of creating a new lexicon of the English language based on historical principles. It took seventy-one years to complete the first edition.

As time goes on, Esme experiences heartbreak and loss. In addition, she becomes increasingly dismayed at the ways in which British society marginalizes women, particularly those from the lower classes. In her unassuming way, Esme rebels against sexism, becomes involved in the battle for women's suffrage, and volunteers to comfort hospitalized soldiers during World War I. Pip Williams perceptively traces Esme's metamorphosis from a shy and naïve girl to a mature, intelligent, and compassionate woman whose love of language remains an essential part of her nature. The author realistically tackles painful topics, but she does not attempt to mollify us with glib solutions. ( )

4.5 ⭐️

I listened to this story and was engrossed with it the entire way through. I sometimes get in a rut with my obsession with WWII historical fiction, so this was a breath of fresh historical air, lol. Any of you who are reading this review, like me, enjoy reading and therefore, enjoy words. This story is about the words. Then the epilogue and the author’s note just top it all off in follow through and context.

Read it! ( )

Sad, subversive, enlightening - one of the best books I've read. This is a novel that raises issues of gender, class and language on nearly every page, and is smart enough to let the reader resolve them. Men especially need to read this book - it certainly gave me a new perspective on what it means to be a woman, and not being one that's an important perspective to gain. A real gem. ( )