This 18th edition of the much-loved Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable is as eclectic, witty and colourful as its predecessors.

With hundreds of new entries on everything from designer babies and social kissing to the Secret Seven and Spring-Heeled Jack, its definitions open the door to a rich mixture of myth, folklore, general knowledge and choice morsels of miscellaneous cultural information. You will not only find the meaning of the phrase ‘backroom boys’ – the unpublicised scientists and technicians of the Second World War – but learn that it was coined by the publishing magnate Lord Beaverbrook.This edition also includes entries from a late 19th-century edition of Brewer’s compiled by Dr Ebenezer Brewer himself. Whether you’re a ‘Brewerphile’ of long standing or a newcomer to its unique charms, this new edition of one of the world’s great reference books is bound to broaden your horizons.