~ Hardcover
~ Winner of the Betty Trask Award - 2021
The Liar's Dictionary chronicles the 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.
An exhilarating and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel from Eley Williams, a formidably brilliant young writer, The Liar's Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity, and joy of language.
"A virtuoso performance full of charm ... The Liar's Dictionary is simultaneously a love story, an office comedy, a sleuth mystery and a slice of gaslit late Victoriana all wrapped up in a perfectly crafted investigation of our ability to define words and their power to define us." -- The Guardian