Overview

A reference book like no other, BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE, has been an inspiration to readers, writers and adventurous thinkers everywhere from its first appearance in the reign of Queen Victoria right up to the present day. Authors as diverse as Philip Pullman, Sir Terry Pratchett, Maeve Binchy and Carol Rumens are all devoted fans. This remarkable book offers a rich mixture of more than 19,000 words, expressions, legends, folklore, general knowledge and choice morsels of trivia, with explanations of everything from elephant in the room to sick as a parrot, from Doctor Who to dwile flonking. This revised and expanded edition features hundreds of new entries on everything from blogs and designer babies to New York s mysterious sewer-dwelling alligators, as well as a selection of heritage entries from a Victorian edition of Brewer s: see enchanted castles, magic garters and poison detectors. The sheer scope of BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE, together with its delightful mix of scholarship and eccentricity, makes it a must for every 21st-century bookshelf.

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9780550104113

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An idiosyncratic adventure, pulling you in and saying: this is, in fact, not what you werelooking for; but it's much more interesting. -- Terry Pratchett Of all the dictionaries in the world [Brewer's] is the most like a treasure-hunt, where one phrase leads to another, and that to a third, and before you know what's happened, it's time for lunch. -- Philip Pullman Brewer's head-words are so enticing and his definitions so eloquent that it's impossible to stop at one. An addiction may develop. -- Carol Rumens, The Independent 20080912

Author Information

Chambers, now Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd following the acquisition of the Harrap bilingual dictionary list in the early 1990s, continues to be based in Edinburgh. As of 2006 it is part of the Hachette Livre UK group of publishers. As well as the core business of publishing dictionaries and thesauruses, Chambers also publishes a range of language-reference titles, reference titles on science, history, biography and quotations, fact books, phrasebooks, and crossword, puzzle and games titles. It is one of the most respected reference publishers in the world.

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