The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams. Publ Vintage 2022, p/b ISBN 978 1 52911 322 8, pp. viii + 422. £8.99.
This, W's first foray into historical fiction, is the touching story of the life of Esme, the daughter of a fictional widower who was on James Murray's editorial team working on The Oxford English Dictionary. It will appeal to readers of this Broadsheet - most, I suspect - who are interested in words, and especially to those who have read Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne vel sim.
Thoroughly researched, Esme's story is cleverly interwoven with the non-fictional nitty-gritty aspects of the progress of the dictionary, its challenges and its personalities. The stories of various entries abound, bondmaid being an especially relevant one.
There is map of 1911 Oxford in the front, and timelines of the OED (from 1857) and of major historical events (from 1894) at the back. The latter is mostly dominated by the progress of women's rights and the suffragette movement. A telling indicator is that when a celebratory dinner for 150 was held in London to mark the publication of the first edition in 1928, women were not invited, but three were allowed to sit in the balcony and watch the men eat, and were later presented with copies of the sumptuous menu. Unbelievable. The other major historical theme is the impact of the First World War on both the personalities we meet and on Oxford University Press itself.
The publication of the second edition in 1989 sadly looks to have been the last physical one. I was in Blackwells once with the current Mrs Bass, and we saw the 20-volume set reduced from £1800 to £600. What a bargain, I thought. I glanced in her direction, interrogatively, but her facial response conveyed something along the lines of 'don't even think about it' ... She was right, of course, on grounds of storage space as well as cost.
OED3 went online in 2000, with an anticipated completion date of 2037 at a cost of £34m. There are quarterly updates, and a subscription costs £100 annually. The dictionary is anticipated to be double the size of the second edition, but I'm sceptical about all these statistics: like all modern language dictionaries in the digital age, OED3 will always be 'work in progress'.
Anyway, this is a rapid, absorbing and inexpensive read. I got my copy at Tesco's for a fiver, the same price as Amazon at the time of writing.
This, W's first foray into historical fiction, is the touching story of the life of Esme, the daughter of a fictional widower who was on James Murray's editorial team working on The Oxford English Dictionary. It will appeal to readers of this Broadsheet - most, I suspect - who are interested in words, and especially to those who have read Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne vel sim.
Thoroughly researched, Esme's story is cleverly interwoven with the non-fictional nitty-gritty aspects of the progress of the dictionary, its challenges and its personalities. The stories of various entries abound, bondmaid being an especially relevant one.
There is map of 1911 Oxford in the front, and timelines of the OED (from 1857) and of major historical events (from 1894) at the back. The latter is mostly dominated by the progress of women's rights and the suffragette movement. A telling indicator is that when a celebratory dinner for 150 was held in London to mark the publication of the first edition in 1928, women were not invited, but three were allowed to sit in the balcony and watch the men eat, and were later presented with copies of the sumptuous menu. Unbelievable. The other major historical theme is the impact of the First World War on both the personalities we meet and on Oxford University Press itself.
The publication of the second edition in 1989 sadly looks to have been the last physical one. I was in Blackwells once with the current Mrs Bass, and we saw the 20-volume set reduced from £1800 to £600. What a bargain, I thought. I glanced in her direction, interrogatively, but her facial response conveyed something along the lines of 'don't even think about it' ... She was right, of course, on grounds of storage space as well as cost.
OED3 went online in 2000, with an anticipated completion date of 2037 at a cost of £34m. There are quarterly updates, and a subscription costs £100 annually. The dictionary is anticipated to be double the size of the second edition, but I'm sceptical about all these statistics: like all modern language dictionaries in the digital age, OED3 will always be 'work in progress'.
Anyway, this is a rapid, absorbing and inexpensive read. I got my copy at Tesco's for a fiver, the same price as Amazon at the time of writing.
