Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

This volume provides an analysis of stories' plot structures and their psychological meanings, attempting to distill all of storytelling down to a few archetypes. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., the author leads readers through the changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. He analyzes why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years.

[This book] provides [an] answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of "basic stories" in the world. Using ... examples, from ancient myths and folk tales, via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling.-Dust jacket.

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