This book is a work of fiction but some of the characters in it are based on real people. The Dictionary of Lost Words is an unforgettable novel that has a lot to say, and says it exceptionally well. You will laugh, you will cry and you will emerge with a deeper understanding not only of words but of the subtle biases of language.

No one notices the word “bondmaid” missing from the dictionary until 1901. up on the forty-nine years since the first part of the dictionary was published; O.E.D.

June 29, 2020. And although I haven’t exclaimed to other people “oh my gosh you have to read this book!”, I really enjoyed it and found it a wonderful change of pace from some of my recent choices. Again, something you don't really think about. It covers a timespan of over a century and moves along at a leisurely pace – but I never once found it boring. And so, over the years, the trunk becomes the secret keeping place for a collection of lesser known words, at least lesser known to, or considered not worthy for inclusion or even “vulgar” by, the privileged and educated men who produce the dictionary. I loved the relationships Esme had with Lizzie and her Aunt Ditte. "And I suspect it will consume me for months.”. Her mother died in childbirth, so her role model and constant companion is her lexicographer father, now amiably wedded to the dictionary. The women unrepresented by the dictionary are missing not due to deliberate exclusion, though.

(There is conflict, but no villains.

And it has a rare quality that is, perhaps, especially valuable in this historical moment: it is deeply, intrinsically kind, without dipping into sentimentality.

Interesting and fascinating, but just another non-fiction book. As it turns out, Lizzie is the bondmaid for Dr. Murray and his family, and she also helps to take care of Esme. A review of The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. The 1933 Supplement was intended to catch the O.E.D.
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Adelaide author Pip Williams attracted an international bidding war for her inventive, absorbing debut novel, which takes place behind the scenes of The Oxford English Dictionary.

"Not one of them could fully explain what had happened to me," she says, after searching the Scriptorium for words and definitions to reflect her experience. Even Esme's most infuriating antagonist is nuanced enough to glimpse another perspective at work.) One of them is the word "bondmaid", later discovered absent from the dictionary's first edition.

Lizzie and Esme form a close relationship and, while Lizzie is quite conservative, Esme is more curious, as her world begins to open up to life beyond the Scriptorium. She presents Lizzie with the slip of paper, but Lizzie can’t read and so they agree to hide the paper in Lizzie’s disused trunk, under her bed. In these times, that complicated kindness is a profoundly comforting place to dwell. While the dictionary is biased, editor John Murray is Esme's lifelong champion and mentor, praising her as a "natural scholar" and pushing for her admission to the Bodleian Library, despite the impediments of gender and a lack of degree. “My case is like the Dictionary, I thought. And so she gains an immersion education in womanhood, and in the process discovers more that is missing from the official record.

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