This book is brilliant. Well-researched, with excellent attention to historical detail and an intriguing plot, this book was also an insightful and clever look at untold history. And I love untold histories. Thanks for the ARC!

The book takes place over a century from 1887 to 1989 and effectively is a fictionalisation and re-interpretation of a true story – the compilation of the Oxford University Press’s New English Dictionary (which became better now as the Oxford English Dictionary) under the editorship of Sir James Murray and a team of lexicographers, based for much of their time in the Scriptorium – a shed in Murray’s garden where the thousands of standard-sized slips, received from around the world setting out meanings and usages of words are examined, evaluated, compiled and storied in a series of specially designed pigeon-holes.

Our first party, fictional, narrator is Emse Nicoll whose widowed father Harry works as a lexicographer in the Scriptorium. We first encounter her as a young child – burning her hands trying to receive a rejected slip which happens to feature her Mother’s name (Lily) from a fire. And this sets something of the pattern for Esme’s young life (and the direction of her later life): as someone who is both seeking a mother figure and who seeks to rescue words, meanings and usages rejected or excluded from, or simply not even considered worth for, the dictionary

The crucial opening scene of the book is cleverly based around a true incident – the only known undeliberate omission from the collected works – the word Bondmaid (meaning slave girl).

Esme who spends her days under the sorting table – spots and decides to keep a stray slip with that word on it and stores it, largely forgotten, in a small suitcase owned by a housemaid Lizzie.

Although this loss is not spotted Esme’s subsequent light-fingered attraction to the slips is noticed and discouraged. That however does not prevent her from embarking on a project to collect lost words and to start to compile the eponymous collection.

The opening third of the novel is I have to say rather simplistically written, as well as slowly paced and maybe rather repetitive (slips put on tables seem to live up to their verbal usage a little too often. In both aspects though I realised that this fits Esme’s life at that stage: she is, of course, an immature young first party narrator; and her word-collection projection is rather ill founded and directionless at this time - perhaps as much as anything a reaction to the loss of her mother.

The need for a substitute mother (or at least supportive female figure) takes three different paths as Esme grows up and the novel simultaneously hits its stride.

The first is Lizzie: hearing of Esme’s quest for words, she takes her to a street market where she introduces her to Mabel – who opens Esme’s ears to a range of words excluded from the dictionary due to both the sex and class of the people that use them. Their first encounter – and some of the words that Mabel uses and defines gives a very abrupt change from the novel’s rather genteel opening. Esme also refinds her long hidden Bondmaid slip – and when Lizzie realises that the word fits her own servitude it also starts to open Esme’s eyes further to class inequality.

The second is an encounter with a group of actors – including a suffragette Tilda (and her brother who gives Emse her first relationship). This opens Emse’s eyes to the fight for women’s rights and also brings in the different tactics used in the fight for voting rights (as well as what universal suffrage means – Esme only two conscious that even the most militant suffragettes are happy with votes for female property owners.

The third is via the (real life) Edith Thompson – a key volunteer on the Dictionary project. In the novel as Ditte she acts as an close Aunt to Esme and advisor to Esme’s father on how to raise a daughter – her letters to both are scattered throughout the letter. Not all her interventions are positive – a recommendation for a boarding school backfires badly – but later she plays a crucial role when Emse’s life is at a crisis, in an extended spell away from Oxford which gives the book a real emotional strength.

Later Esme forms a deepening relationship with one of the typesetters at the Oxford University Press before their relationship, and the final stages of the OED suffer the disruption of World War I – where despite the horrors and the personal tragedy she still finds a way for language and words (in this case Esperanto) to reach the marginalised (in this case a shell shock victim

After its rather shaky start, this is just a really very well executed book – every aspect has taken thought and consideration. Whether it’s: the nicely illustrated Oxford street maps at the start; the word and time span headings for each Part of the book; the lengthy, informative and considered Author’s Note; the cleverly designed acknowledgements; the twin timelines (of OED and historical events); the copious research; the one photograph (and the way it is included in the text as well as in the Acknowledgements) and so on. This is a book which has benefited from time, love and attention from its author, editors and publishers.

But best of all is the bravura ending to the book which simultaneously: brings the story to the modern day; brilliantly links the second edition of the OED to a second edition of Esme (one more able to take advantage of the educational and professional opportunties available to female lexiographers in the late 20th century); movingly reminds us that in the same way that collections of English words has lead to forgotten voices of women and the poor – the English language itself is a sign of colonialisation and involved the loss of native, first people languages in Australia (something which is also sensitivly picked up in the Acknowledgements and which links the book to another Australian literary wonder “The Yield”).

Highly recommended.

An absolute joy to read. Esme was a truly incredible character and I loved how the novel spans the whole of her life.
Williams writes in a way that makes you feel like you’re right there and I felt like I was inside the Scrippy, under the desk beside Esme. Her humour and heartbreaks (there are many) had me completely hooked and I just couldn’t put it down!
I laughed and cried reading this novel and I’m so glad I was given the chance to review it. Thank you to Netgalley and Vintage for the opportunity.

I adored Esme, I love books and I learned so much about how words have come into existence (despite already having a degree in English Language and Literature!) A beautifully lyrical tale which blended real characters with fictional ones. I will definitely be buying the hard copy of this book for my bookshelf when it is published!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Being a librarian and therefore a book and word lover, dictionaries are one of the loves of my life. so I was looking forward to this and it did not disappoint. . A clever novelisation of the process of writing and publishing the first full OED against a backdrop of women's suffrage and WW1. it was well researched and the invented characters worked well against the real life ones. a thought provoking read with excellent characterisation.. some romance, but never mawkish..

Esme, both motherless and curious, spends her childhood in the Scriptorium - a garden shed style building that is the birthplace for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. She spends days hidden beneath the sorting table of her father, alongside a team of male lexicographers who are gathering entries and definitions.

One day, a slip falls into her lap, depicting the word 'bondmaid', which she claims and hides in an old wooden trunk belonging to Lizzie, a young servant in the big house, who looks after Esme. Words that are misplaced, discarded or neglected find a home in the trunk, which soon becomes a dedicated dictionary of lost words. Esme soon realises that some words are considered more important, whilst others are neglected entirely simply for being suggested by women.

As she notices what is missing from the official records, she seizes an opportunity. Whether that be the opportunity for words missing from the dictionary to be recorded or for the women who’s stories aren’t recorded to speak. She works tirelessly on her new dictionary as its counterpart continues to be published. Esme deals with the ordinary, the illiterate and the forgotten to create something extraordinary and definitive. It’s an examination of what is lost in the process of defining a word, and the significance the meaning behind our words can have. In later life she even seizes the opportunity to provide comfort through words to the soldiers from the war who are too traumatised to speak - the vivid descriptions made me choke up.

The author looks into the male orientated field that gave us the Dictionary we recognise today, and she gives power and a story to the women who made so many contributions and efforts at this time. Many of the characters are based on real women who were involved at the time, providing a significance and a voice to the absent women. It acts as a narrative for all those hidden between the lines of a history written by men, and is a significant exploration into why the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was biased in the favour of men. It’s a fantastical world embedded in history. As the suffragette movement and the Great War reign on, the clatter of the presses, the smell of oil, and the transcription of words remains. There is a heady sense of melancholy to all those words and loves lost or those words that are left unspoken.

As a writer myself I know the power behind words - how they can create a picture, express emotion, and in this case create a whole new world. Whilst the first edition of the dictionary was flawed and incredibly gendered, it was an extraordinary development and a book that has shaped so many people’s lives whether they realise it or not. There’s a lingering fascination between how the dictionary and words themselves continue to progress, changing and evolving to the present day.

Just like this story, it’s effects linger and are tangible beyond just words on paper. The Dictionary of Lost Words, or Women’s words, takes a year for a man to bind them, and years for a woman to collect them. Collections from women, and those society didn’t favour, much like the words they speak. All those women; all those words recorded in history. This is a story of hope, a story where the importance of words remains long after the book or the people in it who forged those words could imagine. If you're a fan of The Binding and The Betrayals you will surely love this.

*Huge thanks to Netgalley, and Chatto & Windus at Random House for the review copy

A really wonderful book - one of those that feels like it was written just for me!
Esme is the daughter of an Oxford lexicographer, helping to sort and define the words for the first Oxford Dictionary. The academic process, the relationships between the men doing the work and the female domestic details are all beautifully described. Having lost her mother, Esme spends her time in the Scriptorium with her father, occasionally catching loose word slips that fall under the table where she plays. She hides them in the maid Lizzie's trunk, and declares it "The Dictionary of Lost Words".

I loved the relationship between her and Lizzie, and with father's sister. The female relationships were so real, and captured the huge moment of social upheaval before WW1 with the movement of women into the workforce, and the suffragettes.

Having lived in Oxford, and read a number of other fiction and non-fiction books set in some way around the writing of the first dictionary, the details were accurate and fascinating. I was so drawn into Esme's life, and found the book fascinating.

Absolutely loved this book. So good to get the woman's perspective. Beautifully written. Manages to describe the era ,the First World War to perfection.

I loved this book! It is the best kind of historical fiction, where the novel is based on fact and you just don't know where fact ends and fiction takes over. There is a lovely 'author's note' at the end of the e-book which explains what is factual. I thought it was fabulous that many of the names have been kept and even a speech is quoted verbatim. Had I had the hardback or paperback version of the book, I would have read the author's note early on and then probably again when I was half way through and again when I got to the end - because I like things like that! For me, this is one of the drawbacks of an e-book - you don't see something like this until you get to it!

This novel is the story of Esme. Esme is the daughter of a man who works in the scriptorium where the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is being written. During childhood, she often spends part of her day under the table of the scriptorium and regularly discusses the meaning of words with her father. As Esme grows older, the author has very cleverly woven all sorts of cultural and societal events through the storyline, not least the suffragette movement and the first world war. It's a great book with excellent characters (both real and fictional) and a wonderful story - highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The story of how they made the Oxford dictionary and how they decided which words would be included is really interesting. Against the backdrop of the suffragette movement Esme learns that not all is equal when it comes to words. If a word is used once by Mabel at the market place it does not qualify, however if it is used once by Dickons, it does. She is a gentle girl who lead a sheltered life, but has natural curiosity and intelligence and so moves within her scholarly sphere learning and trying to make women's words count too.

In a Garden Shed at the Bottom of a Garden in Victorian England there was a Scriptorium or Scrippy as our Heroine Esme from Childhood & those who work within it including her Da call it.
A Scriptorium historically is attached to a Monastery & was where Monks wrote & illuminated Books , & also bound them.
But in this story within the walls of the Scrippy the Oxford English Dictionary was born , as gradually every word in the English language was written on a slip of paper the size of a Postcard ,while it's origin's were confirmed & approved for the Dictionary.
Those that work there are all Lexicographers & lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
Esme finds slips with words that either get discarded or lost & she saves & stores them & this begins the Dictionary of Lost Words.
This Book opens your eyes to many things , Suffragette's & their often Violent ways of trying to get Votes for Women plus, Women's suffrage which used the legal & reform way to achieve this means . The Great War & it's affects on the whole Nation .
Words used by those who could not read or write but who's words needed to be recorded , it's a beautiful story but it also enriches the life of the reader too. I will be highly recommending this book. #Instagram, #FB, #Goodreads,#NetGalley,#Amazon.co.uk, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/c566f42be23a0e25d120e78a3454e2d427c4beee" width="80" height="80" alt="50 Book Reviews" title="50 Book Reviews"/>, # <img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>, # <img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>.

I adored this book. Beautifully written, vastly inventive, it draws you in immediately with its wonderful, spirited protagonist Esme and the richly evocative world she inhabits. It’s both lyrical and compelling, written with heart and passion that leaps from the page. A stunning read!

This was such wonderfully written book.
This was a little different type of book. I just loved the loved for words in this book. This was just a beautiful read.


Than you.

4.5 stars

The Dictionary Of Lost Words is historical fiction based around the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Beginning in the late 1800s, this is the author’s imagined story from a woman’s point of view.

Esme is raised by her father, a gifted lexicographer. While he works each day on words for the new dictionary, young Esme often sits under the table at the scriptorium. It’s just a garden shed in Oxford, but to Esme and the wordsmiths it is a place of learned reverence.

Each word begins on a slip of paper with its definition. Most words had several definitions, which needed to be verified, then edited, before a final decision made about inclusion or exclusion from the new dictionary.

‘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.’

Author Pip Williams has considered the methods of censorship around the words which made it to the final publication and those which did not, as well as considering how new words enter our vocabulary during our lives. Set against the background of the suffragette movement and World War One, Esme’s fascination with words drove the story forward. As she grew up she collected words that were used in everyday life, particularly those used by or about women, along with regional and slang words. Many of these words never made it into the dictionary, so Esme made her own collection of them so that they weren’t forgotten.

I liked this story, particularly the detailed days in the scriptorium. The slips of paper for each word conjured lovely pictures in my mind of beautiful old papers tied with string and slotted into the pigeon holes which kept them safe. I can only imagine the disaster if there had been a fire. I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in words and their origin or an interest in the creation of The Oxford English Dictionary.

The story of Esme who loves words and the story of the beginnings of the Oxford English Dictionary are intertwined in this gentle but engrossing novel. Give yourself plenty of theme to read this, you will have to concentrate. It is beautifully written and a lovely story.

‘The Dictionary of Lost Words’ is set at the turn of the twentieth century and follows the life of Esme Nicoll from small child, through to young woman and into middle age. Esme is the daughter of one of the men working to compile the first Oxford English Dictionary and she soon discovers that the words, their meanings and even the dictionary itself don’t always reflect the lives of women to their fullest. Esme sets out on a bold quest to right this wrong and learns a lot about herself and what it means to be a woman in the twentieth century along the way.

This novel took me a bit of time to really get drawn into. I didn’t feel I was connecting particularly to any of the characters and, although I had my guesses, even by half way through I couldn’t see where the story was leading. To anyone who finds themselves feeling the same way, I say, stick with it. The second half of the book really develops the characters and, by the end, I had got choked up on several occasions. As the author acknowledges in the notes at the end of the book, the period in which this novel is set sees a great deal of change, particularly affecting women, including women’s suffrage and the First World War. We witness these events not just through Esme’s eyes, but also those of the women close to her, Lizzie, Tilda and Ditte - women with very different backgrounds, situations and aspirations. The novel also features men with a variety of attitudes and temperaments, who you find yourself either loving or hating!

Central to the plot is the creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary and I was pleasantly surprised to find in the author’s notes that she had changed very little about this aspect, including real names and events as much as possible. As something I haven’t given a lot of thought previously, this novel really does make you appreciate what an undertaking the creation of a dictionary must be, particularly in a time before computers. Plus, as the author intended, it also really highlights how much of the main body of work and decision-making was made by men, with the considerable input by women both in Oxford and from around the UK and beyond barely registering in the history books.

In all, an enjoyable read which brings together social history and women’s issues and the themes of family, love and friendship, plus, of course, the importance of words, language and communication. I have given this book four stars out of five to reflect the slow start to the book which may discourage some readers, though the book really does blossom and pick up some pace in the second half.

My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book before publication in return for this review.

This really is a wonderful book, it is quite unlike anything I have read for some time and tells the story of Esme and her love of words. It is illuminating, sad, educational and enjoyable all at once. The writing is beautiful and I really loved it. Thank you.

Where to begin to tell you about this wonderful and heartwrenching story? Maybe at the end - I recommend to read the author's note first. It will especially give readers who have no previous knowledge about the OED, a good start. And o yes: try and find the movie The Professor and the Madman, based on the book The Surgeon of Crawthorne by Simon Winchester. The movie is excellent and when reading the book it helped me visualise 'the Scrippy' and other places.
The author did a formidable job in creating Esme, a girl at first, who we see growing up in the company of words, words and more words. I'm jealous... I have a picture of the Bodleian library as my screen saver and my idea of heaven is being there surrounded by books. The making of the OED was mostly hard work, and not always fun but I can see how it could make people proud to be able to work on it. As Gareth, my grandfather was a compositor - he even won prizes for it - and with what I know now, I would love to be able to ask him more about his work. Sadly he is no longer among us.
I had to shed a tear at the end of the book - it is such an insightful, heartwrenching and true story. I'm forever grateful to the author that she undertook this magnificent work and gave us this book.

Thanks to Netgalley for this digital review copy.

I wasn’t sure about The Dictionary of Lost Words at first as it took me quite a long time to feel enthused about reading it and my rating for it slowly grew in my mind as the book went on. I enjoyed the last half a lot more and it is already popping into my head as a positive memory and I think will continue to do so. Sometimes I finish a book and when I come to review it a day or so later I am struggling to remember it all but not so with this book.

The plot is a slow and meandering but is engaging in a pleasant, gentle way that suits the current global mood of January 2021. The narrator is Esme who we first meet at six years old in 1888 as she spends much of her days under the sorting table in the Scriptorium in Oxford where her father, Harry, works. The Scriptorium is an iron clad garden shed where a team, led by Dr Murray, are receiving words via the post to make up what will finally become the Oxford English Dictionary. It will take many decades for the completed work but each section, the first being ‘A to Ant’, is published as a fascicle.

Esme’s mother, Lily, died when she was a baby so the main female influence is Lizzie who is a young teenage servant in Dr Murray’s household when we first meet her. Lizzie takes Esme under her wing and looks after her with great care. Meanwhile, in the Scriptorium, the slips of paper that are being sent from all over the world are being sorted and assessed for entry into the dictionary. Some are duplicates, some are discarded as unsuitable for inclusion and some are accidentally dropped. Esme, under the table, starts collecting a few and hiding them in a small wooden trunk, under Lizzie’s bed.

There is also, Ditte, an ‘honorary’ aunt who lives in Bath. There are many letters back and forth between Ditte and Harry and then between Ditte and Esme as she gets older. Ditte tries to help Harry with guidance as to how to bring Esme up in the way Lily would have done so. Sometimes with success but not always.

Esme meets people in quite different social circles to hers and the story gains further interest but underlying all this are the words that Esme is collecting. Her new friends and acquaintances sometimes use words that aren’t in the dictionary so Esme writes the word on her own slips, along with the definition and a sentence using the word, and adds them to her growing secret stash of slips.

While a gentle, and at times slow moving, book, it is very thought provoking, especially when viewed through the eyes of the life of women in this era. Some of the people that Esme meets as a teenager are part of the growing group of the suffrage movement. The plot entwines real life events into the story.

I didn’t realise until I finished the book that not only were the suffrage sections based on real life events but that the Scriptorium was too. There are photographs of the real life Dr Murray with his two daughters and some of his Scriptorium staff, together with a timeline of the main events of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the suffrage movement. I am surprised and a little disappointed that the main events of the suffrage movement, namely the death of Emily Davison under the king’s horse at The Derby and the two dates when women got the vote are not included in the book. The book ended in the year that all women got the vote on equal terms with men but this is not mentioned at all.

I did very much enjoy this book and would recommend it. I think it would be especially good for book groups as there is much to provoke discussion.

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this story about Esme and her experience from a very young age ‘helping’ her father and his work colleagues in the Scriptorium with compiling a dictionary. She quickly discovers some words don’t make it into the finished book because they are not backed up by written examples or are just not considered important enough by the (male!) compilers. She sets about secretly collecting her own set of words, mainly from the women based at her local market, recording them with the name of the woman who gave them. It is set during suffrage times, so is very interesting historically and is actually based on truth as far as the original dictionary goes. It covers a large part of her life and shows how difficult this era was for women. The friendship between Esme and Lizzie, the maid at the Scriptorium, was lovely and as Esme’s mum died, provided her with a mum substitute but also a big sister.

I really enjoyed the book but found the ending felt a bit rushed