Jasper Hartwell

Jasper Hartwell is a writer with a fascination for where things come from — words and expressions, customs, beliefs, traditions and the stories behind them.

His Origins & Meanings books began with idioms, tracing familiar expressions through history to discover how they started and whether the stories told about them were actually true. His writing has since expanded into culture, philosophy and ideas from around the world.

He is the author of the three-volume Idioms: Origins & Meanings series and Japanese Wisdom: Origins & Meanings. His research has been cited in academic work and judicial writing, and his books are read around the world.

Jasper’s approach is simple: start with a question, go back to the earliest reliable sources and see where the evidence leads. Sometimes it confirms the familiar story. Quite often, it doesn’t — and that’s usually where things get interesting.