Wonderfully conceived and extraordinarily useful, this new literary dictionary has been created by a team of freelance lexicographers who have compiled many dictionaries, and their experience shows. The contents have been drawn from a wide-ranging reading program designed to identify the allusions encountered most frequently in literature both modern and canonical. Thus, it covers classical myths and modern culture and ranges from "Ahab" to "Teflon," "Eve" to "Darth Vader." The dictionary is alphabetical but can be searched both by the word used as an allusion and by the theme represented. The dictionary is particularly well laid out, with the major theme of the allusion captioned and explained, followed by the words representing that allusion. Many entries include a quotation illustrating the allusion in use. For allusions based on names, the editors have added explanatory sections describing who these figures were and why they and/or their stories represent various themes. What results is a supremely useful dictionary that is highly recommend for all libraries.