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Intro
In the year 1886, four-year-old Esme Nicoll burns her hand trying to rescue a slip of paper her father, Da, tosses into the fire. The slip contains the word lily, which is the name of Esme’s deceased mother. Esme helps Da with his work on Dr. Murray’s Dictionary project, collecting words, some of which—she will come to learn—are more important than others.
Dr. Murray compiles words for the Dictionary in the Scriptorium—an old shed in his garden in Oxford, England. Volunteers send words to be sorted and defined by lexicographical assistants. Esme hides beneath the sorting table while Da works. One day, she rescues a fallen slip with the word bondmaid written on it. Esme hides the slip in a trunk belonging to Lizzie, her friend and the Murrays’ maid. Though she is only a few years older than Esme, Lizzie’s social status means she will always work in service, while Esme is expected to get married. Esme would prefer to be a lexicographer. She continues to hide fallen slips in Lizzie’s trunk.
In 1888, the Murrays and their benefactors celebrate the completion of words beginning with A and B. Esme’s godmother, Ditte, attends. A historian and volunteer for the Dictionary project, Ditte tells Esme stories about Lily as a birthday gift. Three years later, a new assistant named Dr. Crane arrives at the Scriptorium. Esme’s presence beneath the sorting table bothers him, and he informs Dr. Murray of her habit of stealing fallen slips. Feeling she is rescuing words that would otherwise be forgotten, Esme carves The Dictionary of Lost Words into the trunk’s lid.
At 14, Esme starts her period, and for the first time, the Dictionary’s words fail to explain her experience. The definitions for menstruation, for instance, imply women are polluted. Esme begins secretly reading Da’s letters from Ditte and learns of their plan to send her to Cauldshiels boarding school in Scotland.
After her first term at Cauldshiels, Esme asks Ditte to tutor her, implying she is suffering at boarding school. Esme feels betrayed by Ditte’s refusal. When Da retrieves her from Cauldshiels, he notices her hands are bruised. The newspaper reports that a teacher was abusing children. Guilt-ridden, Da pulls Esme from school and allows her to assist with minor Scriptorium tasks. Esme runs errands for Dr. Murray, checking quotations in the Bodleian library and delivering slips to the printers at the Oxford Press. Secretly, she still collects slips that would otherwise be discarded. One day in 1901, Dr. Murray receives a letter claiming the word bondmaid is missing from the A and B volume. Realizing bondmaid was the first word she put in Lizzie’s trunk, Esme is not sorry: she dislikes the word, thinking of how it describes Lizzie’s inescapable servitude. Esme writes to Ditte, who confirms that words without textual sources will not be included in the Dictionary. This will naturally exclude words used by certain groups—namely women and lower-class people.
As her work progresses, Esme notes that many commonly words are not in the Scriptorium because they lack textual sources. Esme begins collecting words used by Lizzie and other people she meets in the Covered Market. An elderly vendor named Mabel supplies Esme with quotations for many vulgar words. One day, Esme meets an actress named Tilda and her brother Bill, who assists with theatrical performances. Spending time with her new worldly friends helps Esme’s collection of words grow, and she continues to store her collection in Lizzie’s trunk. While in Oxford, Tilda becomes involved with the Women’s Social and Political Union, an activist group fighting for women’s suffrage. Though Esme helps deliver the suffragettes’ leaflets, she resists deeper involvement.
After Tilda’s final performance, Esme has sex with Bill. The siblings leave Oxford. Months later, Esme discovers she is pregnant. Mabel, a former sex worker, gives Esme the address of a woman who performs abortions, but it is too late to terminate. Esme reaches out to Ditte, who invites her to stay with her in Bath. Ditte and her sister, Beth, host scholarly gatherings where their intelligence is surprisingly respected. A couple—Sarah and Philip Brooks—offers to adopt Esme’s baby. Esme is uncertain but ultimately accepts this plan, knowing she cannot care for her daughter, though she loves the baby (whom she refers to as Her).
Esme becomes depressed after her daughter’s birth and adoption, so Ditte sends Esme and Lizzie to a cottage in Shropshire. The hilly countryside eases Esme’s grief and shows her Lizzie’s playful side. Back in Oxford, a new Scriptorium assistant named Mr. Dankworth ruthlessly criticizes Esme’s work and corrects definitions without asking. At Lizzie’s request, Esme visits the Covered Market, where Mabel is dying. Esme considers how Mabel’s words, hidden in Lizzie’s trunk, will eventually be forgotten. After Mabel’s death, she resolves to submit her collection to the Dictionary, or else write her own.
The newspapers report the suffragettes’ disruptive activism and the inhumane punishments they receive. Despite her rage, Esme feels cowardly and ineffectual—and to make matters worse, Mr. Dankworth continues to belittle Esme’s collection of women’s words. In 1913, Esme witnesses a peaceful protest become violent. Gareth, a Press employee who visits the Scriptorium, defends her from angry men. Around this time, Tilda returns to Oxford, and she, Esme, and Gareth argue about the effectiveness of words versus deeds. One night, Esme finds an injured Tilda hiding in her yard, having committed arson for the cause. Esme helps her friend escape Oxford, reflecting that they contribute to the fight in different ways. In May, Da suffers a stroke and dies.
In August 1914, war breaks out. Many Scriptorium and Press employees enlist in the war effort, affecting the Dictionary’s progress. Having become close with Gareth, Esme confesses the secret of her pregnancy and daughter. Gareth proposes to her with a book he printed at the Press entitled Women’s Words and Their Meanings, constructed from Esme’s hidden collection. Esme and Gareth are married the day after he finishes officers’ training.
Dr. Murray dies just before Gareth is deployed. The Dictionary workers plan to move the Scriptorium’s collection to another building. Esme spends her time clearing out the Scriptorium and visiting soldiers in the hospital, including a young man named Bertie who only responds (with terror) to the word bomb. Esme comforts Bertie by teaching him words in Esperanto. Gareth’s letters comfort Esme until he begins sending her the horrible descriptions of war he censored from his soldiers’ letters, knowing she will find a way to honor them. Esme receives word of Gareth’s death the day after the Scriptorium is emptied. The Press prints two more copies of Women’s Words out of sympathy, which Esme donates to the Bodleian, though the male librarian initially refuses. She intends to take a position at Netley Hospital as a linguistic therapist. Esme asks Lizzie to look after her trunk of lost words.
In 1928, Australian woman Megan Brooks receives a letter from Ditte informing her that her birth mother, Esme Nicoll, has died. Ditte has also sent Esme’s trunk of ephemera. The trunk’s contents inspire Megan to become a lexicographer. In 1989, she delivers a keynote speech commemorating the publication of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, emphasizing the significance of all words—even those that go unrecorded.
