The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories [Paperback]

An enormous piece of work, not really one book at all but at least three... nothing less than the story of all stories. --Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye

This is a truly important book, an accolade often bestowed and rarely deserved in our modern age. --Dame Beryl Bainbridge

This is literally an incomparable book, because there is nothing to compare it with. It goes to the heart of man's cultural evolution through the stories we have told since storytelling began. It illuminates our nature, our beliefs and our collective emotions by shining a bright light on them from a completely new angle. Original, profound, fascinating - and on top of it all, a really good read. --Sir Antony Jay, co-author of Yes, Minister

Breathtaking in its scope and originality, "Seven Basic Plots" examines the basis of story telling in literature, film, and libretto. No one will ever see stories in the same way again. This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of 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. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary 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. Booker analyses 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 seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

Breathtaking in its scope and originality, Seven Basic Plots examines the basis of story- telling in literature, film, and libretto. No one will ever read a novel in the same way again.
Comparable to Harold Bloom's masterpiece The Canon.
The fruit of a lifetime's research and fifteen years in the writing.
Christopher Booker is an author with a high profile with a weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph. This is his most important book to date.
Review coverage and fierce argument and debate about this book are guaranteed. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Christopher Booker was one of the founders of Private Eye. He writes a weekly column for The Sunday Telegraph. He has published many books including The Neophiliacs, Castle of Lies and The Great Deception. He still writes for Private Eye.