The Dictionary of Lost Words

In 1901, the word ´bondmaid´ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme´s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word ´bondmaid´ flutter to the floor unclaimed. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women´s experiences often go unrecorded. She begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.