The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

 It is hard to imagine actually creating a dictionary and that very process imagined in this story is mind boggling. Just the dates alone hint at the monumental task: 1857 - a call for a new dictionary to replace Samual Johnson's 1755 version; 1879 - James Murray named editor; 1888 - first volume, A and B, is published; 1928 - V to Z is published, 71 years later.  

This is the story of all the years in between the beginning and end of that first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary but mostly the story of Esme.  Her father was one of the men working on the dictionary.  Her mother had died so Esme spent many hours under the writing tables of the "Scriptorium" watching the slips of paper filled with words drift around her.  Later she would become part of the dictionary creating team.  But the events of her life outside the world of words brought her to the realization that the words and definitions that went into the dictionary were greatly dependent on who put them there.   The lives of the underclass,  the demands of the suffragettes, women of all classes - this was a vocabulary that was easily overlooked by a committee of educated white men.  That connection between words and the world they describe - that one might shape the other - well, those are just some things to think about.  There is a lot of real history in this work of fiction.  It is a great companion read to Simon Winchester's The Madman and the Professor. By the way, the second edition of the OED wasn't published until 1989,  61 years after the first.