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The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams  

It never occurred to me all that went into compiling early dictionaries. Male scholars worked for decades to compile the words and definitions to go into the first Oxford English Dictionary, words and definitions whose final acceptance was at the discretion of the editors of the volumes. This story describes the garden shed in Oxford where real life lexicographer, James Murray, built a Scriptorium, a shed behind his house, where he and his team of scholars could work on amassing words and definitions. Murray and his wife had eleven children who were very involved in Murray's work. 

The fictional part of this story concerns, Esme, whose father is widowed at Esme's birth. Esme's father is a member of Murphy's team and he brings Esme to work with him each day. As a youngster, Esme spends time under the big table of the workers and often gathers discarded word slips and hides them away in a chest in the room of house servant Lizzie. Lizzie, although just eight years older than Esme, is a combination of mother, companion, and maid to Esme, especially once Esme is banished from the Scriptorium for interfering with the work there. 

Later, an unofficial dictionary is compiled of all the words that Esme gathers from the discards of the Scriptorium, and from women and poor people of Oxford and surrounding areas. Words that wouldn't be considered for the Oxford English Dictionary because they are just spoken, not written (since they are used by people who would never learn to write) and words that are considered too crude or offensive to be included in the dictionary. The means to this dictionary being created is one of my favorite parts of the story and concerns Gareth, another of my favorite characters, along with Lizzie. Towards the end of the book, Gareth writes one of the saddest letters I've ever read. 

I thought the work of the lexicographers and assistants was fascinating and this book encouraged me to research the creation of dictionaries further. As the author's note mentions at the end of the story, many of the people and events in this book were real. But Esme, her father, her friend Gareth, and servant Lizzie were fictional. I admired the characters of Lizzie, Gareth, and Esme's father for what seemed to be hard work during lifetimes of trying circumstances.

Esme too had her trials, often due to choices she made, but I felt like the story was brought down by her constant sadness and long bouts of depression. The character of Lizzie, losing her mother to death at the age of eleven and her siblings to orphanages and becoming a lifelong servant at that young age, is a much more compelling story, for me. This is a girl/woman whose life consists of arising long before her masters, to get things ready for the household, working more than sixteen hours a day, not being able to go to bed until after everyone else in the household. This is her life, day in, day out, as long as she is able to get out of bed and do it again. Constant sleep deprivation and no life of her own, no chance of a husband or family and yet, Lizzie's attitude to life is an inspiration. 

Lizzie's story ties in well with the part of the story about suffragists attempting to change things for women. But Lizzie wants no part of that, she is practical and knows that she can only be thankful not to be living on the streets. Esme, even though she is working class, has her loving dad, a home, eventually a job working in the Scriptorium, yet she never seems happy. If only the fictional character of Esme could have learned how to better cope with her blessings, I might have enjoyed her part in the story more. I appreciated getting to learn about this time in our history and the real people who worked to give us the Oxford English Dictionary. I give this story 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars. This was a great buddy read with DeAnn and Mary Beth.

Pub April 6, 2021

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for this ARC.