The Dictionary of Lost Words
The Dictionary of Lost Words
Pip Williams
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.
About the Author:
Pip was born in London, grew up in Sydney and now calls the Adelaide Hills home. She is co-author of the book Time Bomb: Work Rest and Play in Australia Today (New South Press, 2012) and in 2017 she wrote One Italian Summer, a memoir of her family's travels in search of the good life, which was published with Affirm Press to wide acclaim. In The Dictionary of Lost Words she combines her talent for historical research with beautiful storytelling. She has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary and found a tale of missing words and the lives of women lived between the lines.
Dimensions: H 19.7cm x W 12.9cm x D 3.2cm
ISBN: 9781922400277
Publisher: Affirm
Publication Date: 2020
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 384
More from Literature
The IslandsEmily Brugman In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Littl...
The IslandsEmily Brugman In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure. Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these re...
$32.95
Treasure and DirtChris Hammer An unputdownable standalone thriller from the bestselling author of...
Treasure and DirtChris Hammer An unputdownable standalone thriller from the bestselling author of Scrublands.In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap, police struggle to maintain law and order. Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable young people and billionaires do as they please.Then an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine. Nothing about the miner's death is straightforward, not even who found the body. Sydney homicide detective Ivan Luc...
$32.95
Love StoriesUplifting True Stories about Love from the Internationally Bestselling Author of 'Boy...
Love StoriesUplifting True Stories about Love from the Internationally Bestselling Author of 'Boy Swallows Universe'Trent Dalton Trent Dalton, Australia's best-loved writer, goes out into the world and asks a simple, direct question: 'Can you please tell me a love story?' A blind man yearns to see the face of his wife of thirty years. A divorced mother has a secret love affair with a priest. A geologist discovers a three-minute video recorded by his wife before she died. A tree lopper's heart...
$34.95
A Home Like OursFiona Lowe A picturesque small town, a cosy community garden, a facade of toleran...
A Home Like OursFiona Lowe A picturesque small town, a cosy community garden, a facade of tolerance and acceptance - but when three women with wildly different loyalties come together, what secrets and lies will be revealed? A timely novel exploring prejudice and privilege, from bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe. Tara Hooper is at breaking point. With two young children, a business in a town struggling under an unexpected crime wave, and her husband more interested in his cricket team ...
$32.95