The Liar's Dictionary: A Novel (Random House Large Print)

About this book

NATIONAL BESTSELLER You wouldnt expect a comic novel about a dictionary to be a thriller too but this one is. In fact it is also a mystery love story (two of them) and cliffhanging melodrama. The New York Times Book Review An award-winning novel that chronicles the charming misadventures of a lovelorn Victorian lexicographer and the young woman put on his trail a century later to root out his misdeeds while confronting questions of her own sexuality and place in the world. Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dictionaries and works of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement. In the final year of the nineteenth century Peter Winceworth is toiling away at the letter S for Swansbys multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary. But his disaffection with his colleagues compels him to assert some individual purpose and artistic freedom and he begins inserting unauthorized fictitious entries. In the present day Mallory the publishers young intern starts to uncover these mountweazels in the process of digitization and through them senses their creators motivations hopes and desires. More pressingly shes also been contending with a threatening anonymous caller who wants Swansbys staff to burn in hell. As these two narratives coalesce Winceworth and Mallory separated by one hundred years must discover how to negotiate the complexities of lifes often untrustworthy hoax-strewn and undefinable path. An exhilarating laugh-out-loud debut The Liars Dictionary celebrates the rigidity fragility absurdity and joy of language while peering into questions of identity and finding ones place in the world.