Title- The Dictionary of Lost Words
Author- Pip Williams
Publisher- Vintage
Format- Kindle Edition
Pages- 419
Rating- 5/5
Summary- In the year 1857, The Unregistered Words Committee of the Philological Society of London proposed the idea of a new English Dictionary to succeed Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of English Language (1755) and the complete first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in the year 1928, seventy one years after its proposal. However it was biased in many ways and not all English words the volunteers sent were recorded in it. This is a story of the creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary where Esme Nicoll, the daughter of a fictional lexicographer (who works for the dictionary) collects such words to make her own dictionary called The Dictionary of Lost Words.
Review- This is a spellbinding novel about the history of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. There is no doubt that the author has done extensive research to write such a magnificent book. Starting from the various events which led to the publication of the dictionary to women's suffrage movement in England and World War 1, the author has tried to incorporate as much details as possible without causing any boredom to the reader and doing justice to the timeline at the same time. She has given the readers an idea about the different words (which were excluded in the first edition) by cleverly including them in the plotline.
Esme is the narrator and her father is a lexicographer under Dr. James Murray, the dictionary's editor. Being a motherless child, she accompanies her father to the Scriptorium, his workplace and since childhood she is attached to the dictionary and has an affinity for words, so much so that once she burns her hand accidentally in the fire to save a word when she is very small. While in the Scriptorium she comes to notice that some words are more important than others and even though some words are commonly spoken, they will not land up in the dictionary if they are not commonly written whereas some words are excluded just because they are too "vulgar" to be included. Esme's relationship with Lizzy, the Murrays' maid is worth mentioning. When she is small, Lizzy acts as her caregiver and when she grows up to be a woman, they become good friends where she stands by Esme in her best and worst times. Many historical characters are present in the book like Dr. Murray, Edith Thompson, Henry Bradley, Eleanor Bradley, Rosfrith Murray, Elsie Murray, Arthur Maling, Frederick Sweatman and more.
From the author's note it is quite evident that the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was a male endeavour and as a result it was biased in favour of men. The editors and most of the assistants, volunteers and writers whose quotations were used as reference were mostly men. Though female assistants and volunteers were also present and many female authors' writings were used as reference in the dictionary, they were far less in number as compared to their male counterparts and hence history has almost forgotten them. Had I not read this book, I would have missed such an important part of history. I would request all readers to definitely give it a try.
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