Pip Williams on The Dictionary of Lost Words, nuances of language, and her novel's journey to Reese Witherspoon’s book club

Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us.”

― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

Why is it that a word that you feel so viscerally, doesn’t really exist in the dictionary? Our world is overflowing with words. We utter some in shock, others in exclamation and many in jest. Yet, these words never fill the dictionary. And somehow, it doesn’t diminish their significance. In The Dictionary of Lost Words, Williams uncovers this very truth through the story of Esme, a curious and wide-eyed protagonist. Based on real events surrounding the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the novel delves into how words take on different meanings for men and women, exploring the spaces where language and lived experience intersect.

Explaining how research into the Oxford English Dictionary guided her, Williams tells us, “So I only started writing the novel, because of the questions I had about the OED that I couldn't answer using Google or just using the information that was available to me. After reading Simon Winchester's Chesterman's book The Surgeon of Crowthorne, a  non-fiction account of making of the Oxford English Dictionary, she began to have an inkling of how words entered the dictionary and how the dictionary was made. “What concerned me was that for a word to be in the dictionary, it had to have been written down, so it had to have a text or history.”   Given that this project began in the 1850s and was completed in the 1920s, it's important to note that during this time, much of the written work—nearly everything, in fact—had been authored by men.

And so, the dictionary influenced the story that she couldn’t find. Williams says, “I couldn't answer my question, do words mean different things to men and women, and if they do, has something been lost in defining the language in the Oxford English dictionaries? Is there something missing?” In order to answer her own questions, she decided to use her character Esme, and how those words might affect her as she grows. “The story itself really is about a young woman coming to terms with what her life means. And she's a young woman without a mother, but with a really wonderful relationship with her father, who is a lexicographer and works in a scriptorium where the words are being defined. And in many ways, those words which fill pigeon holes around the scriptorium.”

As Williams explains, Esme keeps pocketing the words she finds, and they act as a parent to her throughout the book. It prompts her to start investigate words that she hears in the marketplace, as she realises that most of these words don’t end up in the dictionary.

What words did she learn about in the process?

So, were there any words that Williams herself was surprised or moved by? She answers in the affinitive. “One of the things that I explore in the novel is how words change according to who uses them. And one of those words, for instance, is the word suffragette. We use the word suffragette today as a sort of term for the women's movement, which is all incorrect because the suffragettes were like one faction of the women's movement. The other, sort of main faction was suffragists, and they didn't agree necessarily with each other's processes and the way of going about seeking changes.”

As she elaborates, the term suffragette was coined in 1906 by a journalist to describe the women in Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union. who were protesting more vocally  for women's suffrage. The word was intended to diminish them, as it added the  -ette suffix, often used to create a smaller or lesser version of something. The media at the time portrayed these women negatively, using terms like ‘hysterical" and "screeching Banshees." However, Pankhurst later embraced the term, naming her journal The Suffragette, transforming it from an insult into a powerful symbol of the women's fight for equality. Over a century later, "suffragette" remains a term that honors their strength and determination.

Blending fiction with historical events

No doubt, it is difficult to blend fiction with historical events. Yet, Williams has a belief: Write what you're curious about, and you're usually curious about, is something you don't know much about. “So I didn't know anything about the dictionary when I started this book. My second book, which is The Book Binder of Jericho, I didn't know anything about book binding or how a printing press works, but I was interested in the woman who worked in the bindery on the city's printing press. And it takes me about three years to write a book, and I sustained over that three years because I found it interesting. I found the topic, I was searching the historical records, which were fascinating.”

While researching the Oxford English Dictionary, Williams uncovered many fascinating details that didn’t make it into The Dictionary of Lost Words. One particularly striking discovery came from the archives, where she had access to the proof pages—early versions of the dictionary marked with edits before final printing.

On one such page, she found the entry for literally, followed by literati, meaning an educated class. Then came literata, defined as an educated woman, with only one recorded use—by Coleridge. A few words later was literately, meaning “to write clearly,” a word coined by a female author. But unlike literata, which remained, literately had a thick line through it, with James Murray’s unmistakable handwriting instructing: “excise.”

The implication was clear—while literati was assumed to refer only to men, and literata was deemed an exception worth keeping, a word created by a woman, with a clear and useful meaning, was struck from the record. Yet history had other plans. Literately found its way back into the dictionary in the 1990s, not because of editorial approval, but because people kept using it. Meanwhile, literati, the supposedly superior term, faded into obscurity.

For Williams, this was a perfect example of how language evolves—not just through authority, but through persistence. Words created by men could be preserved even if they never gained traction, while words created by women often had to fight for their place. And yet, some—like literately—would not be erased.

Being a Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club pick

Williams describes the success of her book as something that couldn’t have been planned. It became the first Australian book ever selected for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. “That absolutely made a difference to the number of people who got to know about the book. It was the Pick of the Month in May 2021 or 2022 and just a week later, it was on the New York Times bestseller list, just amazing. So you know, thank you, Reese. I did not get to meet her, but she really spiked up the book on social media,” explains Williams.

The book’s release, however, coincided with an extraordinary moment in history. It was published just two days after the world went into lockdown, an unfortunate circumstance for most debut fiction authors, as traditional book launches and in-person events were canceled. Without these opportunities, many books struggled to find an audience. But Williams' book gained traction, benefiting from an unexpected shift in how books were promoted.

At the start of the pandemic, with social plans canceled and people eager for entertainment, online book talks flourished. Readers, looking for comfort and distraction, gravitated toward historical fiction, and Williams’ novel fit the moment perfectly. Though her publishing partner insists she’s being too humble, she acknowledges that while her book was strong, plenty of good books released in 2020 didn’t have the same fortune. Timing, circumstance, and an audience seeking exactly what her novel offered all came together in a way that couldn’t have been orchestrated—but that made all the difference.