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The Dictionary of Lost Words : a Novel by Williams, Pip is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Dictionary of Lost Words : a Novel about?

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

Who reads The Dictionary of Lost Words : a Novel?

Author

Williams, Pip

Publisher

Affirm Press

Published

2020

Language

EN

ISBN

9781922626905

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction

Rating

4.4 / 5 (23,998 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14