Originally published in 2004, this alphabetical dictionary is a major reference work, based on the archives of the English Place-Name Society and reflecting the scholarship in the subject, of all the names of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, rivers, streams, hills and other geographical locations included in the Ordnance Survey Road Atlas of Great Britain (1983). It provides a reflection of contemporary England, not just its historical past. Every place-name entry has a unique National Grid reference number, a list of historical spellings, the age and meaning of the name and its etymology (pre-Indo-European, Indo-European, Celtic, Primitive Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old French, Middle English, Modern English). Where appropriate, a commentary is provided on comparable names, on the problems, history and significance of the name for settlement, economic and social history, the development of the language and on its variant pronunciations and spellings.

"Pearl" is one of the greatest English Medieval poems, a dream vision that is both a profoundly personal elegy for the dreamer's lost daughter and a subtle theological debate about the most difficult existential questions. In this parallel text edition the original poem is printed opposite a modernised version which retains all the formal features of the original - its elaborate musical schemes of alliteration and rhyme, and its rich vocabulary. Words unfamiliar to the contemporary reader are glossed alongside the modernisation so that the poem can easily be read by anybody not familiar with its idiom. In her introduction (almost the last piece of writing completed before her death) Kathleen Raine discusses the poem's celebration 'of all that the anima means and has meant throughout human history and as the inspiration of so much of the greatest poetry'.

Victor Watt's reference work comprises a completely new compilation, based on the archives of the English Place-Name Society. It reflects the most recent scholarship for all names of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, rivers, streams, hills and other geographical locations included in the Ordnance Survey Road Atlas of Great Britain (1983), with many more recent additions. The Dictionary will be of interest to geographers, historians, historical linguists and language scholars.