The Dictionary People

The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary

By: Sarah Ogilvie

Narrated by: Joan Walker, Sarah Ogilvie

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION FINALIST • The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word.

“Enthralling and exuberant, Sarah Ogilvie tells the surprising story of the making of the OED. Philologists, fantasists, crackpots, criminals, career spinsters, suffragists, and Australians: here is a wonder book for word lovers.”—Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others.

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.

©2023 Sarah Ogilvie (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Sprightly, elegant. . . . Engrossing. . . . Lively and entertaining. . . . The real joy of The Dictionary People is to be reminded that any group of people pinned at its intersection will still burst forth every which way, a tapestry of contradictions, noble and ignoble, wild and banal. In the lives of these uneminent Victorians, Ogilvie has shown us that humanity, even for word nerds, is always—as Jane Austen might put it—sprawly, fragmented and irrepressible.”—The New York Times Book Review

“[A] delightful grab-bag of brief biographies. . . . Again and again, The Dictionary People emphatically demonstrates that even seemingly dry-as-dust scholars weren’t that at all. . . . [To] all the ‘unsung heroes’ celebrated in The Dictionary People, we owe much of our appreciation of the range, beauty and history of the English language.”—The Washington Post

“Ogilvie’s history unites a choice selection of these fascinating personalities still further, turning aspects of their colorful lives into the driving force of this absorbing book.“—The Wall Street Journal

A Book In Search of a Story

If only the author, a thorough researcher, could only write. Or, more to the point, while she loves the topic—which is interesting (who were the people who contributed to the OED?)—she can’t weave a story out of it. Well organized from A to Z (literally), the small and sometimes larger vignettes and biographies of the people who contributed words to the OED is, at the end, not a story. Most of their lives were not all that interesting or, for those who were interesting (generally the more eccentric ones), it wasn’t always clear how or why their contributions to the OED were part of the fabric of their lives. Yes, we know Mr. or Ms. So-and-So contributed 120 words to the dictionary (I did say it was well researched) but so what? How or why was this important to their lives? How does it build a story? Sadly, it doesn’t. Perhaps an opportunity missed.

Delicious and important

Delightful for those of us who love words and have been enaamored of all that has been written about the greatest autodidact ever, James A. H. Murray, who, as second editor of the OED brought it nearly to completion over thirty years. This is the mostly incomplete but necessary story of the many people in the English speaking world who zealously found words and quotations as crowd sourcers to send to Murray's Oxford Scriptorium. Many were women, some were famous but most were everyday readers. Sone were suffragists. One was Shaw's model for Henry Higgins. Ogilvie brilliantly goes through the alphabet telling stories that she has gleaned from tracing them. Loved it and I honor the work it took her and her students to bring it forth.

Let’s here it for the unsung language heroes

Interesting story, but told with an unnecessary romanticism tone of voice. Many of the anecdotes did not warrant it.

A small handful of characters

Too many stories of the noninteresting people and not enough to peak my interest. it was more background noise than anything.