The Dictionary of Lost Words

 If you enjoy historical novels this is a really interesting book, looking at the beginnings of dictionaries.

Pip Williams has written a wonderful novel called The Dictionary of Lost Words.  This is the story of a young girl who grow up in the world of the first dictionary.  Her father is a collector of words and definitions for the dictionary and Esme grows up to follow in his footsteps.  We follow Esme as she goes off to school, gets involved with the women's suffrage movement, finds lust, love and passion for people in her life and in the words she is gathering.

It is fascinating the way they gathered the words and definitions for the First Oxford English Dictionary.

People from the public would send in words and definitions on slips of paper.  These were edited and verified by men who were working on the dictionary.  IT took forty years for the first sections A - B to be printed.  The original dictionary was printed in sections every two letters or so, years apart.  When the author found evidence of a member of the public had written to the men compiling the dictionary that a word had been left out, Williams said she knew she had the plot of her novel.

The word left out was bondmaid, the definition, a young woman bound to serve until her death.

Williams creates her story around the premise that Esme as a young girl found this word on the floor under the table where the words were sorted and hid it.  She goes on to collect words that are considered unfit for the dictionary but that she thinks are important.  Williams examines the idea that men and women look at words differently.  Certain words have different meanings and there were mainly men who worked on the dictionary.  Esme looks at words like sisters and mother and sees that there can be multiple meanings to these words.

It was very interesting thinking about the definitions and learning how the dictionaries were compiled and how it was decided which words to include or exclude.  Also following the historical events of the time, the war and women's fight for the right to vote, how women were treated and the class differences in terms of language and lifestyle were all well presented.,