The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
About Pip Williams
Pip Williams was born in London, grew up in Sydney and now lives in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia with her family and an assortment of animals. She has spent most of her working life as a social researcher, studying what keeps us well and what helps us thrive, and she is the author of One Italian Summer, a memoir of her family’s travels in search of the good life, which was published by Affirm Press to wide acclaim. Her first novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, based on her original research in the Oxford English Dictionary archives, was published in 2020 and became an international bestseller. The Bookbinder of Jericho is her second novel, a companion to The Dictionary of Lost Words, and again combines her talents for historical research and beautiful storytelling. For further information, visit:
A Quote from Pip Williams
“We write about the past to excavate stories buried in the rubble of history books and archives. I do it to understand a little more about how we came to be and where we might be heading. I hope my stories will be read and enjoyed, and that the ideas they contain might live beyond the page. Being considered for the ARA Historical Novel Prize – Australia’s most significant recognition of historical fiction – makes that more likely. I am thrilled, and humbled, that The Bookbinder of Jericho can sit alongside these other books that have so enriched our reading lives.”
About The Bookbinder of Jericho
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 studying at 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.
