Puns are traditionally the lowest form of wit. This book, a defence of the much maligned pun, asks us to think twice about its place in our lives and our culture. It is at different moments an analysis, a history and an anthology of puns. It collects and dissects them in literature tracing their fortunes from classical times to the present in the hands of for example, Lucretius, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Donne, Joyce and Beckett. The book also discusses puns in popular culture, the visual arts, graffiti, dreams and so on.