The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams – 402 pages
Book Blurb:
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams: 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 to the floor. She rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means slave-girl, she withholds it from the OED and begins to collect words that show women in a more positive light.
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.
My Review: 4.5 stars
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams was one of my favorites of 2022, even though it was a 2021 release. It’s been on my TBR (To Be Read) list since its release and I’m taking my own advice (for a change) and not just reading new books. I promised myself I’d read old new in equal measure as much as I can.
This book is a love letter to words. Seriously, words are the most valuable asset we have besides our health. It’s how we communicate to others and even with ourselves. We need words. In The Dictionary of Lost Words, we follow Esme, a young girl being raised solely by her father and spends time with him at the Scriptorium where lexicographers are creating the first Oxford English Dictionary.
The process put in place to accept or deny new words, confirm their meaning and agree with other lexicographers on their usage was exhausting and fascinating. The proofing, the printing and the dismissing of certain words was unbelievable. Women used words that men never spoke, did that make them less important? Did people of different classes use different words? Of course, they did. But were they considered valid for a dictionary?
Esme, living through all this, often took discarded words and saved them in her housemaid’s trunk. This act of saving words was of huge significance to a further plotline. Esme comes of age and beyond and many talking points and themes are woven through the story such as single women, adoption, the suffrage movement, resistance, class standing and romance.
Highly recommend this book to anybody who respects and loves words.
Quotes I liked:
Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us.”
“A vulgar word, well placed and said with just enough vigour, can express far more than its polite equivalent.”
“Words are like stories … They change as they are passed from mouth to mouth; their meanings stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said.”
“But when we talk about her, she comes to life.” “Never forget that, Esme. Words are our tools of resurrection.”
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