BOOK REVIEW

BILL MCCARTHY Lured by its association with Simon Winchester’s The Surgeon of Crowthorne, I ploughed manfully through the first third of this book before grinding to a halt, defeated by the tedium of the tale. I am afraid that this story about a young Victorian-era girl coming of age was not particularly interesting and her peripheral role in the creation of the Oxford Dictionary was not enough to prevent the onset of sleep.

If you are into Jane Austin, Charlotte Bronte and Victorian dialogue, then I guess this novel might be more up your alley. MARY BARBER This novel brings to life the Oxford Dictionary and its compilers in the last 1800s and early 1900s. It’s a wonderful tale centred around Esme, a young girl whose father was an editor of the dictionary. The book draws you into Esme’s life and the life of the famous dictionary. I enjoyed this book immensely. It is populated with real people from the time, such as Sir James Murray who ran the Scriptorium, the large garden shed were words were sorted and described for inclusion in the dictionary. If you enjoy words, history or just a darn good yarn, this book is for you.

TONY HARRINGTON

SUZI HIRST I really struggled with this book, to say the least. It is not often that I do not finish a book, but this one got the better of me. It is a slow read at the beginning and I eventually downloaded it on to Audible hoping that it might hold my attention better so I could write my review.

It is the true story of the Oxford Dictionary and thus feel I must finish it. The reviews are excellent so there must be something more to come in the story that I have not reached yet! I’m still trying. THE DICTIONARY THEDICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS By Pip Williams

JOHN KLEINSCHMIDT Debut author Pip Williams had two simple questions: Do words mean different things to men and women and have we lost something in the process of defining them. She decided that the absence of women in the process of compiling the first edition of the Oxford Dictionary resulted in it being biased in favour of the experiences and sensibilities of older, white, Victorian men. The story is of Esme’s short life collecting words lost or discarded by the lexicographers, discovering words, some vulgar and used by stallholders in Oxford’s markets, and other places, including the women’s equality and suffrage movement active at the time. An enjoyable book with many layers to absorb. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme 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 first Oxford English Dictionary.

Her place is beneath the sorting table. One day a slip of paper with the word bondmaid flutters down. 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.

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. It was inspired by actual events.

This well written and interesting novel expertly brings together the life of a young woman and the history of researching words to create the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). After 70 years and millions of slips defining the origin and meaning of English words, eight volumes of the OED were finally published in 1928.

The main character, Esme, realises that vulgar words and those relating to activities of women were often excluded from the OED so she starts collecting them. English women in the late Victorian period no matter what their social status, were essentially slaves to the wishes of men.

The themes of this story are how women fought to be equally recognised, universal suffrage, family, love, unwanted pregnancy, marriage, grief, the role of women during World War I and the hard life of a female servant, a bond maid. Great work Pip Williams! 8/10

JO BOURKE A dictionary was top of the book list for all primary school students in the good old days! All those years I thumbed the pages of my school dictionary and never once wondered who had compiled it. Well, this book certainly has the answers in factual and painstaking detail enticing the reader into the lofty patriarchal world of Dr Murray and his band of lexicographers.

To avoid being solely historical the author introduces fictional Esme, precocious and motherless, who navigates from childhood to her adult questioning of inequality in language and in the rights of women. I had mixed feelings re this book – it is long and often repetitive, but it won me with the accuracy of the author’s thorough research and Esme’s story was certainly believable as a female daring to challenge the norms of that period.

The work of Dr Murray and his band lives on in dozens of Dictionary Apps available on phones and laptops. How amazing! Definitely recommended.

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