The Dictionary of Lost Words: Reese's Book Club: A Novel

Esme is born into a world of words in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed where her father and a team of lexicographers are collecting words for the first Oxford English Dictionary. As a child, she sits unseen beneath the sorting table until a slip of paper containing the word "bondmaid" falls within her reach. Learning it means "slave girl," she begins collecting other words discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As Esme grows, she recognizes that words and meanings relating to women's and common people's experiences often go unrecorded. She sets out to create her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so, she must leave the university world and meet the people whose words will fill its pages. Set during the women's suffrage movement with the Great War approaching, the novel reveals a narrative hidden between the lines of history written by men. Inspired by actual events and drawing from the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary, the story explores the power of language to shape the world.