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'In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her.
'When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back.
'In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women's eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Author's note:
For my sister,
Nicola
'Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the geginning.'
Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
As Pluck Would Have It
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2023;
— Review of The Dictionary of Lost Words 2020 single work novel ; The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel -
Pip Williams The Bookbinder of Jericho
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , April 2023; (p. 73)
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel 'IN PIP WILLIAMS’ SECOND NOVEL, The Bookbinder of Jericho, 21-year-old Peggy Jones works alongside her twin sister Maude as a “bindery girl” in Oxford. It is 1914 and although the world around Peggy is changing, she remains stuck and frustrated. Maude has a form of aphasia and requires care, and Peggy is constantly told that books are not for “the likes of you, Miss Jones”. Despite her intelligence and hunger for knowledge, Peggy can only dream of being a scholar' (Introduction) -
Peggy the Obscure : Pip Williams’s New Novel
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 453 2023; (p. 31)
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel'First, a confession. I am one of a tiny minority of readers who were underwhelmed by Pip Williams’s first novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words (2020). I thought it a splendid idea, one undermined by facile messages about how women’s words were ignored by the men who recorded our language and its meanings. Clearly, I was in a minority: Dictionary became an international bestseller, one of the most successful Australian novels ever published. Friends raved about it. I wondered what I wasn’t getting.' (Introduction)
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Bestselling Author Pip Williams Returns with The Bookbinder of Jericho, a Companion Novel to Her Hit The Dictionary of Lost Words
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2023; -
For the Love of Words
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 25-26 March 2023; (p. 17)
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel
-
Pip Williams Shows How World War I Transformed Women’s Lives, in a New Novel That Captures the ‘poetic Materiality’ of Books
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 27 March 2023;
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel'Pip Williams describes her new novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, as both follow-up and companion to her 2020 debut, The Dictionary of Lost Words.'
-
For the Love of Words
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 25-26 March 2023; (p. 17)
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel -
Peggy the Obscure : Pip Williams’s New Novel
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 453 2023; (p. 31)
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel'First, a confession. I am one of a tiny minority of readers who were underwhelmed by Pip Williams’s first novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words (2020). I thought it a splendid idea, one undermined by facile messages about how women’s words were ignored by the men who recorded our language and its meanings. Clearly, I was in a minority: Dictionary became an international bestseller, one of the most successful Australian novels ever published. Friends raved about it. I wondered what I wasn’t getting.' (Introduction)
-
Pip Williams The Bookbinder of Jericho
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , April 2023; (p. 73)
— Review of The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel 'IN PIP WILLIAMS’ SECOND NOVEL, The Bookbinder of Jericho, 21-year-old Peggy Jones works alongside her twin sister Maude as a “bindery girl” in Oxford. It is 1914 and although the world around Peggy is changing, she remains stuck and frustrated. Maude has a form of aphasia and requires care, and Peggy is constantly told that books are not for “the likes of you, Miss Jones”. Despite her intelligence and hunger for knowledge, Peggy can only dream of being a scholar' (Introduction) -
As Pluck Would Have It
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2023;
— Review of The Dictionary of Lost Words 2020 single work novel ; The Bookbinder of Jericho 2023 single work novel -
‘Making a Book Is an Extraordinary Thing’ : Pip Williams on the Invisible History of Female Bookbinders
Walter Marsh
(interviewer),
2023
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 28 March 2023; 'The bestselling author of The Dictionary of Lost Words shares the spark behind her new novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho – filling the ‘blank spaces’ around the women who worked at Oxford University Press' -
Bestselling Author Pip Williams Returns with The Bookbinder of Jericho, a Companion Novel to Her Hit The Dictionary of Lost Words
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2023;
Awards
- 2024 shortlisted Booksellers Choice Award BookPeople Book of the Year — Adult Fiction Book of the Year
- 2024 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian General Fiction Book of the Year
- 2024 shortlisted Indie Awards — Fiction
- 2023 shortlisted Dymocks Book of the Year — Book of the Year
- 2023 longlisted HNSA Historical Novel Prize — Adult
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Oxford,
Oxfordshire,
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,
- 1914-1918