Words are a sequence of letters. They evoke expression, meaning and language. Words build sentences that form into paragraphs that lead you to numerous writing mediums. In short, words are powerful. They are a language that is a part of what defines our world. They bring people together to form a common ground. Often times, they can even divide people. How one chooses to use their words makes all the difference.

Imagine a collector of words and the knowledge they hold in their grasps. I’ve always been fascinated with people who collect them. Are you a collector of words?

I’m really looking forward to reading The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams and sharing my thoughts about it. Thank you, Ballantine Books for a copy. -Stephanie Hopkins

Be sure to check out before the second sleep’s cover crush and thoughts of this book! Her thoughts are really insightful.

Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine

Historical Fiction

Pub Date 06 Apr 2021

Description

In this remarkable debut based on actual events, as a team of male scholars compiles the first Oxford English Dictionary, one of their daughters decides to collect the “objectionable” words they omit.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means “slave girl,” she begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.

As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so, she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.