A witty and overdue celebration of the uncelebrated

The Complete Book of Mothers-In-Law – A Celebration. By Luisa Dillner, Faber, €17.55

‘There was a knock at the door; I knew it was the wife’s mother, because the mice were throwing themselves on the traps.”

So said the late, great Les Dawson, a man whose name was practically synonymous with the mother-in-law joke, which was ubiquitous among comedians during the politically incorrect 1970s.

This was, of course, the humorous extension of an ...