The Dictionary of Lost Words

Pip Williams’ award-winning New York Times bestseller, The Dictionary of Lost Words was the first Australian book chosen for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, and the stage adaptation became a sold out, smash-hit in 2023. Now it comes to Wollongong to sweep you away. It’s 1886, and the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is being compiled. Young Esme Nicoll has a front row seat. Well, she’s hiding under the sorting table, anyway. As her father and his male colleagues decide which words stay and which go, Esme collects the discarded scraps to compile her own radical, magical dictionary. A sweeping historical tale, The Dictionary of Lost Words follows Esme from her childhood into adulthood at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and the beginning of the First World War. Delight in this beautiful and transporting reflection on love and language in a stunning work of art, with each detail carefully considered. It’s unmissable!