Dear Commons Community,
I have just finished reading, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. It is an historical novel with two plots, both relating to the development of the 1st edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Plot one is the development of the dictionary itself led by chief editor Sir William Murray and his associates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The second and more provocative fictional plot focuses on a character, Esme, who spends her childhood in Oxford in the Scriptorium with her father, Da, who is one of Murray’s associates who took on the painstakingly, decades-long task of assembling the dictionary. As reviewed by Publishers Weekly, The Dictionary of Lost Dictionary is an exuberant story of the “daughter of a lexigrapher who devotes her life to an alternate dictionary and a feminist take on language that will move readers. The author, Pip Williams, has done a masterful job in telling the story of The Dictionary of Lost Words.”
Anyone interested in words and how they shape our thoughts and feelings will love this book.
Below is a review of The Dictionary of Lost Words that appeared in reddit.
Tony
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Book Review – Dictionary of Lost Words
Pip Williams
Historical Fiction
One of the best books i ever read, and i am not even a fan of historical fictions!
I never even paused for a moment before picking up a dictionary and finding words and their meanings, dictionary just existed for me – I did not think about how much work went into creating one! how many people were involved, what was the process, and how the words were collected or discarded.
Sir James Murray began compiling the dictionary in 1879. It was unfinished at his death in 1915 and completed by his fellow editors in 1928. The second edition appeared in 1989; the third edition is currently being worked upon.
Dictionary of Lost words is brilliant, well researched, detailed and refreshing, and never once boring. The first few chapters have my heart – the journey of young Esme has such innocence, that it’s reads like a song!
The story starts and revolves around the first-ever edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and Esme whose life starts weaves itself around that dictionary – the words that esteemed men of the Dictionary committee chose, selected, and finalized to be a part of the mega mission – of course a few women were involved too but they were not the decision-makers. This story is deep-rooted in reality, most characters and most accounts are real except for a few main ones – the protagonists who make this history of dictionary, the suffragette movement, and WW1 lyrical, heart-wrenching, moving, warm, beautiful, and breathtaking. Yes, so many adjectives and all well deserved.
The blurb states that six years old Esme, daughter of a lexicographer, lives her life in the womb of scriptorium – the place where the dictionary starts its journey, and through the years, she starts rescuing some words, words that were either not important enough or had not been ever written down – each word in the dictionary had to have a textual history – but that meant that words which were not ever written down, words of the uneducated, of tradespeople, of women, were lost. This became Esme’s project, those Lost Words.
She started rescuing words from the scriptorium, from the local market, from an old prostitute, from women she met on her journey of life, from people whose words were not good enough to be part of the prestigious books, words that were deemed obscene and vulgar by the men of the dictionary.
This is also a tale of extraordinary friendships born out of the quest for those lost words, this is the story of Lizzie Lester the bondsmaid (an important word in the book), of Mabel the market crone, of Tilda, of women of suffragette movements, of Ditte, of Beth, of daughters of Dr Murray who contributed their lives to the mission of dictionary but were lost in the pages of history because they were not men, they existed in real life. The book talks about those historical women who were as much a part of the history of the dictionary but were forgotten, lack of representation, and the major flaw in the system of dictionary creation.
If you are a word lover, linguist, lexicographer, or grammarian, this is the novel you’ve been waiting for without even realizing it. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical (I know I have used the word a few times now, but this is the most suited word that describes the novel), and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.
The book burns slowly, takes its own time in shaping up, in becoming a captivating fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded – as rightfully said by the NYT. As the author said, the dictionary, just like the English Language, is a work in progress.
My advice is, do not gobble the book, drink it like sips of wine, a little at a time, savor it, and let it sink in, it is not just a story – it needs time to get under your skin and to make you think.
𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬:
‘…𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛.’
‘𝐼 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑛, 𝐼 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑠. 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑑𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 – 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑓 𝐼’𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙.’
𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑.
‘𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠…’
𝐴 𝑣𝑢𝑙𝑔𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑, 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑣𝑖𝑔𝑜𝑟, 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡.
‘𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒, 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘?’ 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑, 𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑. ‘𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑠, 𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑝 𝑒𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑝. 𝐼𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡.’
