The Dictionary of Lost Words: Essay Prompts

Introduction to the Essay Prompts

The following prompts are designed to move beyond summary and into sustained analysis of The Dictionary of Lost Words. Each prompt targets a specific element of Pip Williams's novel—character development, causality, relationships, contrasting scenes, themes, symbols, structure, foreshadowing, or the ending—and asks you to build an argument grounded in textual evidence. Use the chapter and scene leads provided to anchor your claims, and consult the linked theme and character pages for deeper context.

Prompt 1: The Bondmaid Slip as Catalyst

Why it matters: The novel opens with Esme's rescue of a burning slip and later reveals that the first word she ever kept was bondmaid, a word missing from the published dictionary. This slip becomes the seed of her secret collection and, ultimately, the subject of her daughter's epilogue speech. Tracing its journey reveals how a single discarded word can shape a life and a legacy.

Sample thesis direction: In The Dictionary of Lost Words, the bondmaid slip functions as a narrative catalyst: its accidental fall into Esme's hands initiates her lifelong project of collecting lost words, and its eventual redefinition in the epilogue symbolizes the recovery of women's voices from the margins of lexicography.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 2 (May 1887): Esme catches the bondmaid slip under the sorting table and hides it in Lizzie's trunk, beginning her secret collection.
Chapter 10 (August 1901): Dr. Murray searches for the missing bondmaid slip; Esme retrieves it from her trunk, recognizing it as the first word she took, written in her father's hand.
Chapter 26 (September 1915): Esme writes a new definition for bondmaid and gives the slips to Elsie for Mr. Bradley, signaling her reclamation of the word.
Epilogue (Adelaide, 1989): Megan Brooks holds up the fragile bondmaid slip and speaks the word, explaining it once belonged to her mother, completing the narrative arc.

Prompt 2: Esme's Transformation from Observer to Lexicographer

Why it matters: Esme begins as a child hiding under the sorting table, watching the male assistants work, and ends as a paid lexicographer who compiles her own dictionary of women's words. Examining this change reveals how the novel critiques the gendered structures of knowledge production.

Sample thesis direction: Esme's evolution from a silent observer beneath the sorting table to an active contributor who writes her own definitions charts her growing awareness of the dictionary's exclusions and her determination to challenge them, a transformation that mirrors the broader feminist project of recovering women's history.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 2 (May 1887): Esme declares she wants to be a lexicographer after Mr. Mitchell tells her she could do anything.
Chapter 9 (September 1898): Esme becomes her father's assistant, running errands and verifying quotations at the Bodleian, gaining institutional access.
Chapter 11 (May 1902): Esme writes her first slip for knackered and later has her definition for madcap accepted, marking her entry into lexicographic practice.
Chapter 19 (May 1909): Esme decides to compile a dictionary of women's words, sorting slips with Lizzie's help, and writes her own definitions for cunt.
Chapter 23 (August 1914): Gareth presents her with a printed volume titled Women's Words and Their Meanings, edited by her, confirming her authorship.

Prompt 3: The Friendship of Esme and Lizzie Across Class Lines

Why it matters: Lizzie, a maid, and Esme, the daughter of a lexicographer, form a bond that transcends social hierarchy. Their relationship provides a counterpoint to the dictionary's exclusion of working-class and women's language, and it shapes Esme's understanding of what words matter.

Sample thesis direction: The friendship between Esme and Lizzie is the novel's central relationship, as Lizzie's oral knowledge and domestic labor become the raw material for Esme's collection of lost words, challenging the class-based authority of the dictionary.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 2 (May 1887): Esme shows Lizzie the bondmaid slip; Lizzie offers her trunk as a hiding place, establishing their secret collaboration.
Chapter 4 (April 1891): Lizzie explains that needlework proves her existence, a moment that teaches Esme about permanence and the value of tangible records.
Chapter 11 (May 1902): Lizzie teaches Esme the word knackered and introduces her to Mabel O'Shaughnessy, expanding Esme's lexicon beyond the Scriptorium.
Chapter 16 (September 1907): Lizzie accompanies Esme to Shropshire, where she gains confidence and collects local words like bostin and mairt, deepening their partnership.
Chapter 26 (September 1915): Lizzie finds seven bondmaid slips while packing the Scriptorium, and Esme gives her the new definition to pass on, cementing their shared legacy.

Prompt 4: Contrasting Spaces: The Scriptorium vs. the Covered Market

Why it matters: The novel juxtaposes the Scriptorium—a male-dominated, institutional space where words are verified through written sources—with the Covered Market, where working-class women like Mabel and Lizzie use language orally and informally. This contrast highlights the novel's central tension between written authority and lived experience.

Sample thesis direction: By setting the Scriptorium against the Covered Market, Williams dramatizes the divide between institutional lexicography and the oral, gendered language of everyday life, suggesting that the dictionary's authority is built on the exclusion of the latter.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 11 (May 1902): Esme visits Mabel's stall and learns the words cunt and quim, which she records with Mabel's name, but finds them absent from the C volume.
Chapter 18 (November 1908): Mabel gives Esme the word morbs (a passing sadness) from her market stall, a word that never appears in the dictionary.
Chapter 20 (December 1912): Esme explains to Gareth that the words she collects are used by the poor, market workers, and women, and are excluded from the Dictionary.
Chapter 12 (May 1906): Esme collects words from stallholders and meets Tilda, an actress, at Mabel's stall, further linking the market to unconventional female spaces.

Prompt 5: The Gendered Exclusion of Women's Words

Why it matters: The novel repeatedly shows how words associated with women's bodies, work, and experiences are omitted from the OED. This theme is central to the novel's critique of lexicographic bias and its exploration of how language defines social reality.

Sample thesis direction: Through the exclusion of words like bondmaid, cunt, and lie-child, Williams argues that the dictionary's authority is gendered, and that the act of defining language has historically silenced women's experiences.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 6 (September 1896): Esme searches the dictionary for words related to menstruation and finds none that explain her experience, highlighting the gap.
Chapter 11 (May 1902): Esme discovers cunt is absent from the C volume despite its use in the market.
Chapter 16 (September 1907): Esme searches for lie-child and finds it excluded, reflecting the stigma of illegitimacy.
Chapter 19 (May 1909): Esme writes her own definitions for cunt and begins compiling a dictionary of women's words.
Chapter 26 (September 1915): Esme writes a new definition for bondmaid, reclaiming a word that the dictionary had dropped.

Prompt 6: The Trunk as Symbol and Archive

Why it matters: The trunk under Lizzie's bed becomes the physical repository for Esme's lost words, letters, and slips. It symbolizes the hidden history of women's language and the act of preservation against institutional erasure.

Sample thesis direction: The trunk functions as a counter-archive to the OED, preserving the words and voices that the dictionary excludes, and its eventual transmission to Megan in the epilogue represents the passing of this alternative legacy to the next generation.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 2 (May 1887): Lizzie offers her trunk to hide the bondmaid slip, establishing it as a secret space.
Chapter 5 (August 1893): Esme scratches “The Dictionary of Lost Words” inside the trunk lid, naming her project.
Chapter 10 (August 1901): Esme retrieves the trunk and finds the bondmaid slip at the bottom, connecting her collection to the dictionary's missing word.
Chapter 26 (September 1915): Esme places Gareth's telegram in the trunk, adding a personal loss to the archive.
Chapter 27 (November 1928): Megan receives the trunk from Edith Thompson and spends the night reading its contents, discovering her mother's legacy.

Prompt 7: The Structure of Dates and Historical Timelines

Why it matters: The novel is organized by dated chapters, from the prologue in 1886 to the epilogue in 1989, interweaving Esme's personal story with the historical timeline of the OED, the suffrage movement, and World War I. This structure invites analysis of how individual lives intersect with larger historical forces.

Sample thesis direction: Williams's use of dated chapters and historical timelines frames Esme's personal journey within the broader sweep of history, suggesting that the dictionary's creation and the fight for women's rights are parallel projects of defining and claiming authority.

Evidence leads:

The prologue (February 1886) and chapter 2 (May 1887) establish Esme's childhood in the Scriptorium during the OED's early years.
Chapter 6 (September 1896) coincides with Esme's adolescence and the dictionary's progress on the letter C.
Chapter 13 (June 1906) places Esme's involvement with the suffragettes alongside the dictionary's work on M.
Chapter 23 (August 1914) shows the impact of World War I on the Scriptorium, as assistants enlist and the work slows.
The epilogue (1989) looks back from the second edition of the OED, linking the novel's themes to contemporary lexicography.

Prompt 8: Foreshadowing in the Prologue: Fire and Snow

Why it matters: The prologue's imagery of fire and snow—Esme's burned hand and the snow that cools it—foreshadows the novel's recurring motifs of loss, destruction, and recovery. This opening scene sets up the central tension between the fragility of words and the resilience of those who preserve them.

Sample thesis direction: The prologue's juxtaposition of fire and snow establishes a pattern of destruction and healing that recurs throughout the novel, symbolizing the loss of words and the possibility of their recovery through Esme's collection.

Evidence leads:

Prologue: Esme reaches into the fire to save a burning slip, burning her hand; her father plunges it into snow, leaving blackened fragments on her skin.
Chapter 5 (August 1893): Esme's scarred fingers are a reminder of that moment, and she reflects on the fragility of words.
Chapter 13 (June 1906): Bill learns about the scar on her hand, connecting her past to her present relationship.
Chapter 22 (May 1913): After Da's death, Esme walks with Gareth and notices the decaying flowers left for Lily, echoing the prologue's imagery of loss and memory.
Chapter 26 (September 1915): Gareth's death is reported via telegram, a moment of destruction that Esme places in the trunk, transforming loss into preservation.

Prompt 9: The Ending: Megan's Speech and the Legacy of Bondmaid

Why it matters: The epilogue shifts perspective to Megan Brooks, Esme's daughter, who delivers a speech titled “The Dictionary of Lost Words” and holds up the bondmaid slip. This ending resolves the novel's themes of legacy, language, and maternal inheritance.

Sample thesis direction: The epilogue's focus on Megan and the bondmaid slip completes the novel's argument that lost words are not truly lost if they are passed on, and that the act of speaking a word can restore its meaning and honor the women who preserved it.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 27 (November 1928): Megan receives the trunk and reads Esme's letters and slips, discovering her biological mother's identity and the word bondmaid.
Epilogue (1989): Megan, now a professor, speaks the word bondmaid to an audience, explaining it once belonged to her mother, and smiles at a young student, suggesting continuity.
The epilogue also references the Kaurna language revival, paralleling the recovery of lost words with Indigenous language preservation.
The Author's Note (chapter 29) explains that the novel was inspired by the question of whether words mean different things to men and women, and the epilogue's speech embodies that question's answer.

Prompt 10: Ditte's Role as Mentor and Catalyst

Why it matters: Ditte (Edith Thompson) is a recurring presence who shapes Esme's education, challenges the dictionary's exclusions, and ultimately orchestrates Esme's escape from an unwanted marriage. Her letters and interventions are pivotal to Esme's development.

Sample thesis direction: Ditte functions as both a mentor and a catalyst in Esme's life, using her letters and personal interventions to push Esme toward intellectual independence and to provide practical solutions when Esme faces social constraints.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 3 (April 1888): Ditte gives Esme On the Origin of Species and tells her the story of her parents' meeting, linking education to personal history.
Chapter 6 (September 1896): Ditte proposes Esme attend Cauldshiels School and encloses the word literately, showing her investment in Esme's education.
Chapter 8 (April 1898): Ditte's letter reveals she overlooked Esme's trauma at Cauldshiels, and she later arranges for Esme to attend Oxford High School.
Chapter 14 (December 1906): Ditte responds to Esme's pregnancy with a plan to have Esme live with her as a research assistant, offering a path that avoids marriage.
Chapter 22 (May 1913): Ditte leads Esme and Gareth to the bridge where Da used to walk with Lily, revealing a ritual of remembrance that helps Esme grieve.

Prompt 11: Esme and Gareth: A Relationship Built on Words

Why it matters: Gareth, a compositor at the Press, becomes Esme's partner and ultimately her husband. Their relationship contrasts with her earlier involvement with Bill, and it is grounded in a shared appreciation for words and the act of preservation.

Sample thesis direction: Unlike Bill, who represents a fleeting romantic connection, Gareth's relationship with Esme is built on mutual respect for language and the work of preservation, as evidenced by his gift of Women's Words and Their Meanings and his support for her collection.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 20 (December 1912): Gareth helps Esme gather her slips and advises her to keep them safe, showing his understanding of her project.
Chapter 21 (January 1913): Gareth is punched during a suffrage procession, and Esme and he grow closer over the following months.
Chapter 23 (August 1914): Gareth gives Esme a slip recording a mother's definition of loss, and later presents her with the printed volume of her words.
Chapter 24 (May 1915): Esme and Gareth marry, with Lizzie dressing her and the bindery women throwing rice.
Chapter 26 (September 1915): Gareth's death is reported, and Esme places his final letter and the telegram in the trunk, preserving his words.

Prompt 12: The Inadequacy of Language for Trauma and Grief

Why it matters: The novel repeatedly shows characters struggling to articulate trauma—Esme's abuse at Cauldshiels, Bertie's mutism after the war, and Esme's grief over Da and Gareth. This theme interrogates the limits of language and the dictionary's inability to capture lived suffering.

Sample thesis direction: *