Table of Contents

Introduction: A Self-Conscious Story
1. Visions, Dreams – and that which hath no Bottom
2. Room On All Three Floors: Dante to Macdonald
3. The Mind has Mountains: Landscape into Psyche
4. From China to Peru: Global Imaginations
5. Children’s Spaces: Adult Fantasies
6. Far Fetched Facts and Further Fictions: Furnishing with Extremes
7. Experience of Self: From Identity to Individuality
Conclusion: Know Thyself: Facebook, Cyborgs, and Reincarnation
Index

Promotional Information

A literary and cultural exploration of our inner selves - and how we have created and written about them - from the Old Testament to Facebook.

About the Author

Stephen Prickett was an Honorary Professor of English at the University of Kent at Canterbury and Regius Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow, UK. He authored 10 books and edited nine volumes, including Reader in European Romanticism (Bloomsbury, 2010), which was winner of the Jean-Pierre Barricelli Prize. During a career that began in the late 60s, Professor Prickett taught in the UK, US, Australia, Denmark, Italy, Singapore and Nigeria. He was a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Fellow of the English Association, former Chairman of the UK Higher Education Foundation and was a former President of the European Society for the Study of Literature and Theology.

Reviews

Secret Selves is a remarkable book, at once deeply personal and also a reflection on a profession spent with literature and art ... the product of lifetime of reading and teaching, moving with ease across texts and the images of Western art. It is a reflection on the selves whom we think we know well, and the selves in all of us that remain secret.
*The Coleridge Bulletin*

This is a fascinating book, written with clarity and charm. What is engaging as well as convincing is how Stephen Prickett traces out the visible emergence, usually in literature but also painting and film, of a conception of the interior life, suggesting how we might read evidence of it even in a single word or phrase. An impressive, memorable study that will, aptly, linger in the mind.
*Francis O’Gorman, Saintsbury Professor of English Literature, University of Edinburgh, UK, and author of Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History*

With a beguiling lightness of touch, Stephen Prickett explores the immense and fascinating landscape of the human mind. His book provokes, challenges and delights in equal measure. It's a joy.
*The Rt Revd Dr Christopher Herbert, Visiting Professor in Christian Ethics, University of Surrey, UK*

Stephen Prickett's many books on the evolution of the modern European imagination were without fail deeply original, written with wit, clarity and an immense range of reference. This – sadly posthumous – work is no exception. I can think of no other recent book that offers so rich an exploration of how modern people learned to think about their “inner selves,” with examples ranging from children's books to debates on Artificial Intelligence. A brilliant, humane, many-faceted study.
*Rowan Williams, former Master of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK*