“A captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded…it allows Williams’s readers to be treated to a wealth of delightful banter.” 
—New York Times Book Review

“This gentle, hopeful story will be a balm for nerves frazzled by the pandemic or patience fried by sexism.”
 —The Guardian

 “Williams turns history as we know it on its head in this delightful debut, spotlighting those women and their contributions, using the awe-inspiring power of words themselves to illuminate them.”
—Newsweek

“Enchanting, sorrowful, and wonderfully written, the book is a one-of-a-kind celebration of language and its importance in our lives. A must-have.”
—Library Journal (Starred Review!)

“Do words mean different things to men and women? That is the question at the heart of Williams’ thoughtful and gentle first novel based on original research in the Oxford English Dictionary archives… A lexicographer’s dream of a novel, this is a lovely book to get lost in, an imaginative love letter to dictionaries.”

—Booklist
 
“In Williams’s exuberant, meticulously researched debut, the daughter of a lexicographer devotes her life to an alternative dictionary…Williams’s feminist take on language will move readers.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Intriguing…The Dictionary of Lost Words is a searching, feminist exploration of how class and gender affect the boundaries of language. This sweeping coming-of-age story, set against a tumultuous time in British history, is a historical fiction fan's dream.”
—Shelf Awareness

“If you’re a word lover, linguist, lexicographer or grammarian, this is the novel you’ve been waiting for without even realizing it. If you never thought of words in this way before, don’t worry: Williams will convince you of a word’s importance in a most lovely and charismatic story.”
—BookReporter.com
 
“This remarkable novel tries to rectify a glaring oversight in the historical accounts of the first Oxford English Dictionary—the contributions of women. While many biographies have been written about Dr. James Murray and his team of lexicographers, The Dictionary of Lost Words is the first literary work to highlight the women behind the scenes, without whom the English language wouldn’t have evolved as fully and colorfully as it has.”

—Boston Magazine
 
“Esme is a wonderful character: stubborn, not always brave, but very clear on what she wants to achieve. The writing is glorious; I dog-eared many pages as I read, marking passages that helped me see words in a new way.”

—Manhattan Book Review (Starred Review!)
 
"This charming, inventive, and utterly irresistible novel is the story we all need right now. Words have never mattered more, as Pip Williams illuminates in her unforgettable debut."

—Susan Wiggs, author of The Lost and Found Bookshop
 
“Inspired by a wisp of fact—a single word accidentally omitted from the Oxford English Dictionary—Pip Williams has spun a marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress. This is a novel that brings to light not only lost words, but the lost stories of women’s lives. It is at once timely and timeless.”
—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book
 
“In the annals of lexicography, no more imaginative, delightful, charming, and clever book has yet been written. And if by writing it Pip Williams has gently rapped my knuckles for wrongly supposing that only white English men led the effort to corral and codify our language, then I happily accept the scolding. Her wonderfully constructed story has helped entirely change my mind.”
—Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
 
“What a novel of words, their adventure, and their capacity to define and, above all, challenge the world. There will not be this year a more original novel published. I just know it.”
—Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s List