Since antiquity, we have been fascinated by a seemingly simple verbal mind game: Can the letters in a word be rearranged to produce another word that reveals a meaning hidden in the original word?

In my last column, I discussed the peculiar number of apposite anagrams in The Thorpe Case, which is, as it happens, an anagram of Poacher’s Teeth, or Hatchet Repose, according to preference. Hann ...