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. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid
flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip, and when she learns
that the word means "slave girl," she begins to collect other words that
have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to
women's and common folks' experiences often go unrecorded. And so she
begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the
Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of
the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill
those pages.
Set during the height of the women's suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words
reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written
by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into
the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.
