Book Of A Lifetime: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase And Fable, by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

The self-taught love dictionaries. (And who isn't, in some area, self-taught?) Dictionaries are doors into the dim halls of whatever learning has eluded us, but where we know treasure can be found.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable has changed over the years, but the Rev Dr Brewer's own modest words still capture its unique flavour: a "sweep-net of a book" he called the first (1870) edition, "which draws in curious or novel etymologies, pseudonyms and popular titles, local traditions and literary blunders, biographical and historical trifles..."

The son of a Norfolk schoolmaster, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer was born in 1810, and educated at Cambridge. He was ordained, then returned to work in his father's school. Like many a Victorian clergyman, he was a great collector – of facts. Aged 30, he published A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, a work fated to become largely obsolete. A huge success in its day, it funded his extensive travels, and so helped him gather material for the Dictionary.

The plotless juxtapositions of any dictionary are stimulating (besides deluding you that your mind is as well-stocked as the compiler's). Brewer's head-words are so enticing and his definitions so eloquent that it's impossible to stop at one. An addiction may develop. Every page sparks connections, like a poem. This is the cloud-chamber where oddly-matched signifiers get together and procreate.

Dip in, and swim around the letter M. What kaleidoscopic scenery extends from Maat to Mount Zion, from Mugwump to Myton. The explanation of Mugwump alerts us to another reason why this Dictionary is a Johnsonian delight. "A word borrowed from the Algonquin, meaning one who thinks and acts independently," Brewer begins. This sounds approving, we mugwumps note. But then comes a sharp and timeless caution: "turncoats are mugwumps, and all political Pharisees whose party vote cannot be relied on".

When Brewer confidently declared that "a work of this kind is of as much usefulness in 1891 as in 1830" he was almost right. Phrases and fables acquire new meanings only if new evidence is uncovered (and most are beyond evidence). But our relationship with them does change. Some fade from the social currency, and others enter it. John Ayto, reviser of the latest dictionary, adds much new material. Dirty Den is there as well as Dido, Tony's Cronies as well as the Three Greater Mysteries.

Why do we still need works like Brewer's? Such store-houses of mythology, folklore and quotations contain keys to the literature of the past – keys that our culture has nearly lost. Brewer's publishers (Cassells, then Weidenfeld & Nicolson, now Chambers Harrap) have done sterling work in keeping the golden oldie in print for 138 years. They deserve our gratitude, too.

Carol Rumens's new poetry collection, 'Blind Spots', is published by Seren