The Dictionary of Lost Words : A Novel PB

416 pages | Paperback In this remarkable debut based on actual events, as a team of male scholars compiles the first Oxford English Dictionary, one of their daughters decides to collect the “objectionable” words they omit. “Delightful . . . [a] captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded”—The New York Times Book Review “A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress.”—Geraldine Brooks, author of People of the BookEsme is born into a world of words. Motherless and ever-curious, she spends her childhood in Oxford in the room where her father and fellow lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. While they work, young Esme begins to collect other words, ones that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and commo