The liar's dictionary a novel

"Peter Winceworth, a disaffected Victorian lexicographer, inserts false entries into a dictionary - violating and subverting the dictionary's authority - in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young overworked and underpaid inter...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Williams, Eley (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Doubleday, [2020]
Edition:First United States edition.
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Summary:"Peter Winceworth, a disaffected Victorian lexicographer, inserts false entries into a dictionary - violating and subverting the dictionary's authority - in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young overworked and underpaid intern employed by the dictionary's publishing house, is tasked with uncovering these entries before the work is digitized. As the novel progresses and their narratives combine, as Winceworth imagines who will find his fictional words in an unknown future and Mallory discovers more about the anonymous lexicographer's life through the clues left in his fictitious entries, both discover how they might negotiate the complexities of an absurd, relentless, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, undefinable life. Braiding together contemporary and historical narratives, the novel explores themes of trust, agency and creativity, celebrating the rigidity, fragility and absurdity of language."--Provided by publisher.
Physical Description:270 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN:9780385546775
0385546777
9780593311868
0593311868
9781785152047
1785152041
Author Notes:Eley Williams is an editor, lecturer, tutor, and writer. She earned her doctorate from Royal College, University of London, where she currently teaches creative writing and children's literature. She is also co-editor of fiction at 3:AM magazine and assists the independent publishers Copy Press. Her work has been published in Ambit, Night & Day, The Dial, and Structo. Her awards include the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2005 and, the James Tait Black Prize for fiction in 2018, for her collection, Attrib. and Other Stories.

(Bowker Author Biography)