Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (17th ed.)

'...there's never a dull moment to be had with this great, daft, pointless, wonderful brick of a book' - Amazon.co.uk 'John Ayto has done a brilliant job bringing our phrase and fable right up to date' - Daily Express First published in 1870, Ebenezer Bobham Brewer's treasury of 'words that tell a story' is one of the world's best-loved reference books.

At the heart of the dictionary lie entries on the meaning and origin of a vast range of words and expressions, from everyday English phrases to Latin tags.

For the 17th edition, new editor John Ayto has revised and updated the existing text and added 1500 new articles, including words and phrases (Al-Qaeda, 9/ll), characters, places (and monsters) from fantasy literature (including The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter), famous political and sporting nicknames (Butcher of Baghdad, Goldenballs) and continuing the century-old Brewer's practice of recording unexpected and fascinating information not available in other reference books - 'list entries' as diverse as misattributed quotations, first lines of novels, 'etymologies of group names and French/Spanish/German/Italian idioms.