I particularly liked Pip Williams’ first book, The Dictionary of Lost Words, a successful combination of a fictional story with the backdrop of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. It has some historical figures and is set late in the 19th century through the early 20th. This one is a fictional story set during World War I, with a focus on twin sisters, Peggy and Maude, who work for the Oxford University Press. It describes the process of the physical creation of books.
Peggy, an unusually well-read and intelligent bookbinder, cares for her impaired sister Maude, who is beloved in her own way. Their lives are changed when Belgian refugees arrive, in particular a former librarian who is drawn to Maude. Peggy volunteers to care for wounded Belgian soldiers and becomes close to a young man whose face was terribly disfigured. The upheaval makes it possible for Peggy to become what she and her mother always wanted, a student at Somerville, the nearby Oxford college for women. The book features their lives on a narrowboat, named Calliope, an inexpensive way to live. And we learn about the work that the bookbinders, the women’s work area, did, including folding pages and gathering them perfectly.
The author explores Peggy’s complex interpersonal relationships. There’s the jealousy that the caregiver Peggy feels at Maude’s comfort with the Belgian refugee Lotte and her own love of Bastiaan, the injured Belgian, complicated by her desire to be a Somerville student.
A historical figure mentioned was Gilbert Murray, an Oxford don who wrote about the war. I read more about him and learned he translated ancient Greek plays into verse. I remember being surprised when I read a few of those plays that verse was easier for me to understand, so I like to think I have read some of his work.
It was appealing to encounter a few of the characters who appeared in The Dictionary of Lost Words in this book. Tilda had been a friend to characters in that book, and the typesetter Gareth who set the dictionary for his beloved Esme appear here. To explain that dictionary, he said the lost words were women’s words. “A friend has been collecting them, writing them down. Giving them meaning.” They have small roles in this one, but it was a pleasure to hear them mentioned.
I was confused by the difference I found for the name of this book; the kindle book I read has the title above. The review in The Guardian and the title I found in Amazon’s listing is The Bookbinder of Jericho and I assume the original publisher called it that but when it was published here in the US, Jericho was dropped. Jericho refers to an area just outside the old walls of Oxford that was an industrial area at the time this book was set, being near the Oxford canal and the Oxford University Press.
Williams, Pip, The Bookbinder, Ballantine Books, 2023, 436 pages (I read the kindle version). Available in the public library.