Dictionary of Lost Words

A Novel

No cover

Pip Williams: Dictionary of Lost Words (2022, Random House Publishing Group)

English language

Published Oct. 7, 2022 by Random House Publishing Group.

ISBN:
978-1-9848-2074-7
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6 editions

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Esmé Nicoll's widowed father was an assistant to James Murray, the editor of the first Oxford Dictionary, and because her mother was dead, she accompanied her father to the Scriptorium, the shed in the Murrays' garden, where the work of compiling the dictionary was carried on. While they sorted the slips of paper with the entries, many sent in by volunteers, five-year-old Esmé sat quietly under the table, noting the shoes and socks worn by the editorial assistants.

One day one of the slips falls from the table, and when no one bends down to retrieve it, Esmé puts it in her pocket, and later hides it away in an old trunk belonging to Lizzie Lester, the Murrays' housemaid, who is only a few years older than Esmé herself. So Esmé becomes a collector of lost words, words that are discarded from the dictionary, words that are lost inadvertently, and …

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