That tells stories, in various senses of the sb.; addicted to anecdote; exercising the art of the story-teller in literature or otherwise; colloq. lying, mendacious.
1766. Fordyce, Serm. Young Women (1767), I. iv. 145. The vulgar story-telling tribe [i.e., novelists].
1839. Sir W. Hamilton, in R. P. Graves, Life (1885), II. 301. I resemble only too much the inveterate story-telling button-holder.
1840. Thackeray, Catherine, i. What a naughty story-telling woman! Ibid. (1848), Van. Fair, viii. I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples,… work himself up into such a rage [etc.].
1863. Longf., Wayside Inn, Prel. 168. The story-telling bard of prose, Who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales or the Decameron.
