Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell’s revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In these pages, Campbell outlines the Hero’s Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world’s mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.
As part of the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, this third edition features expanded illustrations, a comprehensive bibliography, and more accessible sidebars.
As relevant today as when it was first published, The Hero with a Thousand Faces continues to find new audiences in fields ranging from religion and anthropology to literature and film studies. The book has also profoundly influenced creative artists?including authors, songwriters, game designers, and filmmakers?and continues to inspire all those interested in the inherent human need to tell stories.
Joseph Campbell was born in New York City in 1904 and educated in America, France and Germany. He was the author of the four-volume study of world mythologies collectively titled The Masks of God , among other works, and also edited The Portable Jung and The Portable Arabian Nights . He died at his home in Hawaii in 1987.