Jonathan Law was born in Westonzoyland, Somerset, in 1961 and obtained his degree in English from Oxford University. Since 1989 he has worked as an editor at Market House Books, where he has contributed to numerous dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works. He is the editor or co-editor of European Culture: A Contemporary Companion (1993), The Cassell Companion to Cinema (1995), Who's Who in the Twentieth Century (1999), The Macmillan Dictionary of Contemporary Phrase and Fable (2002), Oxford's A Concise Encyclopedia (2004) and A Dictionary of Business and Management (2006). He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and three children.