Set in the heyday of the Suffrage movement, this quietly gripping tale of a lexicographer’s daughter who starts compiling her own dictionary out of words deemed ‘less important’ is a poignant exploration of love, tenacity and the ownership of language.
Sometimes you have to start with what's lost to truly find yourself...
Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood at her father's feet as he and his team gather words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary.
One day, she sees a slip of paper containing a forgotten word flutter to the floor unclaimed. And so Esme begins to collect words for another dictionary in secret: The Dictionary of Lost Words. But to do so she must journey into a world on the cusp of change as the Great War looms and women fight for the vote. Can the power of lost words from the past finally help her make sense of her future?
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781529113228
Number of pages: 432
Weight: 342 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 26 mm
A brilliant book about women and words - tender, moving and profound - Jacqueline Wilson
An extraordinary, charming novel... Williams pins a whole, rich life to the page - The Times
Poignant, perfectly paced... a beautifully nuanced work - Eithne Farry, Mail on Sunday
I absolutely loved this book! Thought-provoking, touching and subtly romantic; I finished it in tears - Katie Fforde
Williams's satisfying novel animates a fascinating history and imbues it with a feminist slant, asking how words mean different things to men and women - Patricia Nicol, Sunday Times
I was sent a copy of The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams to read and review by NetGalley. What a stunning read, I absolutely adored this book! The story of Esme is told in the first person which straight... More
“Some words stretched so far back in time that our modern understanding of them was nothing more than an echo of the original, a distortion. I used to think it was the other way around, that the misshapen words of the... More
What an extraordinary novel! Pip Williams's The Dictionary of Lost Words follows Esme, from a little curious girl hiding under her father's desk at the Scriptorium where men are working on the... More
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