Book Review: The Dictionary of Lost Words

Pip Williams’s debut novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, weaves a wonderfully whimsical story between real historical events. In between the writing of the first Oxford English Dictionary, the suffragette movement and World War I, you’ll be introduced to characters plucked from the past and a few conjured from the mind of the author.

In this book, Williams imaginatively answers how the word “bondmaid” ended up being excluded from the Oxford English Dictionary – a discovery that was made in 1901. The result is a compelling story that follows Esme, the daughter of one of the lexicographers working on the dictionary, as she grows up surrounded by words and the meanings imposed upon them by men.

While the story moves with Esme as she grows from a child to an adult who collects words of her own, it asks pertinent questions relating to the meaning of words, how and why they change depending on context and on whether a man or a woman uses them. Questions that I have grappled with having dipped my toe into the world of linguistics and gender studies.

It’s an easy yet thought-provoking read with lots of light-hearted whimsy and a few tear-jerking moments that’ll keep you turning the page and wanting to read just a little bit more.