The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

Delightful . . . a] captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded.--The New York Times Book Review

A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress.--Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which 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, learning that the word means slave girl, 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.

WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARD

Williams, Pip: - Pip Williams was born in London and grew up in Sydney. She has spent most of her working life as a social researcher and is co-author of the book Time Bomb: Work, Rest and Play in Australia Today (NewSouth Press, 2012). Her creative non-fiction has been published in InDaily and The Australian and produced for Radio Northern Beaches, and she is very proud of a poem she published in Dolly magazine when she was fifteen years old. Pip Williams lives in the Adelaide Hills with her partner, two boys and an assortment of animals.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780593160190
ISBN 10	0593160193
Title	The Dictionary of Lost Words
Author	Pip Williams
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2021-04-06
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.