A delight … As funny and vivid as Dickens, as moving and memorable as Nabokov … An extraordinarily large-hearted work. THE CRITIC

Picked as a Book of the Year in the Guardian
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mountweazel, noun: a fake entry deliberately inserted into a dictionary or work of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement.

In the final year of the nineteenth century, Peter Winceworth has reached the letter S , toiling away for the much-anticipated and multi-volume Swansby s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Overwhelmed at his desk and increasingly uneasy that his colleagues are attempting to corral language and regiment facts, Winceworth feels compelled to assert some sense of individual purpose and exercise artistic freedom, and begins inserting unauthorised, fictitious entries into the dictionary.