The Lost Words: Rediscover our natural world with this spellbinding book

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It had come to the attention of some who work in the world of words that certain words were slipping out of common usage. Esme's life is not easy as she suffers significant losses but through it all she never loses her love of words. We thought it best that he do the words and I do the pictures but I confess, I haven’t yet seen his drawings.

A report by the National Trust on Natural Childhood in 2012 set out compelling evidence that a decline in childhood wellbeing and mental health and an increase in obesity rates are just some of the costs of a generational decline in having freedom outdoors. This fascinating novel brings to life the history of the first Oxford English Dictionary, and it’s not boring as that might sound! Older mentor, not quite understanding the mentee but giving great guidance anyway; just not quite what was really needed.I soon realised that this history also included the women's suffrage movement in England as well as World War I.

With the suffrage movement’s rising and Great War’s looming, a new history starts written itself with the unrecorded, abandoned, neglected words! Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. At the very least I wanted to do a series of paintings to make into a book, with dictionary definitions beside them. Robert Macfarlane is the bestselling author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Landmarks, and Underland, and co-creator of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells .the words are always tip-tilting, reconfiguring themselves, shedding pieces and adding others; but the language as a whole lives and thrives and, broadly, remains the same.