The Dictionary of Lost Words A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK

"A captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded."—The New York Times Book Review

"A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress."—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book

In a world where words hold power, one young woman discovers the ones left behind.

Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers work to compile the first Oxford English Dictionary. While the men around her meticulously define language, Esme, unseen beneath the sorting table, notices something troubling—some words, particularly those related to women and the working class, are discarded and forgotten.

When she rescues a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid—meaning “slave girl”—her curiosity sparks a quiet rebellion. As she grows older, Esme sets out to collect the overlooked and erased words, crafting a dictionary of her own: The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Set against the backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement and the looming Great War, this remarkable novel, inspired by true events, brings to light a forgotten history hidden between the lines of the dictionary. With lyrical prose and a profound exploration of the power of language, Pip Williams offers a moving tribute to the words that shape our lives—and the voices that deserve to be heard.