Author(s): Pip Williams

Aust Fiction | South Australian Authors

What is lost when knowledge is withheld?

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 novel from the internationally bestselling author of 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.

Matilda Bookshop Review

The Bookbinder of Jericho is set at the outset of the First World War and follows Peggy and Maude, twin sisters living on a canal boat and working in the Oxford University Press bindery. This richly researched novel is built on a scaffold of history, subtly incorporating actual places, events, historical figures, and texts. Evocative descriptions of the bindery transport readers to a world of words, acting as an ode to the power of knowledge and a celebration of a community of working women on the cusp of social transformation. This is a companion to The Dictionary of Lost Words and fans of Esme’s story will certainly find plenty to treasure here. Georgia