The publication of the first edition of Metaphor and Thought in the fall of 1979 coincided with, and to some degree contributed to, a rapid burgeoning of interest in and research into the nature and function of metaphor in language and thought. This interest has shown itself in a number of different disciplines – including the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, linguistics, cognitive and clinical psychology, education, and artificial intelligence – with the result that during the last decade or so some important and influential new ideas have appeared. In addition, a new journal, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, was launched in 1986 and continues to thrive as a major outlet for research ideas. Finally, 1990 saw the publication of METAPHOR II – A Classified Bibliography of Publications from 1985–1990, a volume containing some three and a half thousand references (Van Noppen & Hols, 1990).

In view of developments such as these, it seemed appropriate to prepare a second edition of Metaphor and Thought, in which all the authors of chapters appearing in the first edition (with the exception of Max Black, who, sadly, died in 1988) would have the opportunity to update their original contributions to reflect any changes in their thinking. Of the twenty-one chapters in the first edition, eight have been revised, some extensively. The eight revised chapters have an asterisk preceding their titles in this edition.