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A review by batrock
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
3.0
Words are fascinating. The Dictionary of Lost Words uses the true story of the word "bondmaid" disappearing from the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary as a springboard for an examination of what it was like to be a working woman in a changing age.
Pip Williams' mega seller has much to recommend it, and is mostly charming, but its excursions into women's suffrage are superficial and extraneous (if thematically appropriate), and as it progresses it becomes gratuitous in the amount of poor fortune that can be visited on its characters - even with a war on.
Perhaps Williams felt that because the Oxford English Dictionary was real and Esme Nicoll was not, that she couldn't be seen to do too much that would get in the way of history - but it comes across as a series of punishments for characters and readers both. The good outweighs the bad, and the 3.5 nearly tips into a 4, but The Dictionary of Lost Words deserves more of a sweet aftertaste than its slightly bitter finish.
Pip Williams' mega seller has much to recommend it, and is mostly charming, but its excursions into women's suffrage are superficial and extraneous (if thematically appropriate), and as it progresses it becomes gratuitous in the amount of poor fortune that can be visited on its characters - even with a war on.
Perhaps Williams felt that because the Oxford English Dictionary was real and Esme Nicoll was not, that she couldn't be seen to do too much that would get in the way of history - but it comes across as a series of punishments for characters and readers both. The good outweighs the bad, and the 3.5 nearly tips into a 4, but The Dictionary of Lost Words deserves more of a sweet aftertaste than its slightly bitter finish.