Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Ebenezer Cobham Brewer(Author)
E.M. Kirkpatrick(Editor)
John Murray Learning (Publisher)
Published on 28. January 1999
Book
Paperback/Softback
1136 pages
978-1-85986-286-5 (ISBN)
Description
This is the first abridged edition of the legendary reference work, "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", compiled by Dr Brewer in 1870, which has since gone through many editions and sold millions of copies.
It has enjoyed great popularity ever since its first publication, and is a veritable treasure-trove of interesting pieces of information - some snippets, some larger articles, some extended lists - always fascinating and charming, and frequently amusingly idiosyncratic.
It contains over 15,000 entries which give the meaning and origin of words, phrases, proper names, figures in mythology and history, and terms in religion, magic, philosophy, literature, geography, history, and the sciences.
This is an extraordinary miscellany of knowledge, including lists of traditional animal calls, patron saints, wedding anniversaries, heraldic terms, how to play nine men's morris, and much more.
As the Editor says in her Introduction, it is "a unique and fascinating collection of information invaluable to anyone who reads or writes".
It has enjoyed great popularity ever since its first publication, and is a veritable treasure-trove of interesting pieces of information - some snippets, some larger articles, some extended lists - always fascinating and charming, and frequently amusingly idiosyncratic.
It contains over 15,000 entries which give the meaning and origin of words, phrases, proper names, figures in mythology and history, and terms in religion, magic, philosophy, literature, geography, history, and the sciences.
This is an extraordinary miscellany of knowledge, including lists of traditional animal calls, patron saints, wedding anniversaries, heraldic terms, how to play nine men's morris, and much more.
As the Editor says in her Introduction, it is "a unique and fascinating collection of information invaluable to anyone who reads or writes".
Reviews / Votes
A classic reference work - The Times Educational SupplementA browser's joy - Sunday Express
One of the great reference books - The Independent
Brewer's has always been the source of last resort for puzzling questions that are not answered in conventional dictionaries and encyclopedias - The Times
More details
Series
Edition
Abridged ed of 2 Revised ed
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Edition type
Abridged edition
Dimensions
Height: 200 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 44 mm
Weight
670 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85986-286-5 (9781859862865)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Originally conceived and produced by the great polymath Dr Ebenezer Cobham Brewer in 1870, this concise edition has been sensitively abridged and completely updated by Betty Kirkpatrick, editor of several well-known dictionaries and thesauri, including Roget's Thesaurus.