Myths and tales of metamorphosis, from Leda and the swan to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, command great excitement and pleasure among readers. This book explores stories of transformation, in poetry, fiction, and painting. It shows how ideas about human personality, such as the zombie and the doppelganger, develop in the encounter between cultures.

`Review from previous edition A sprightly, imaginative, playful, fabulously informed public meditation on change, mutating, hatching, splitting, doubling and carrying on.' New York Times `The book will allow the slower reader more time to digest that range (dazzling), as well as the piercing, playful use of ideas ... (the book) is in love with complicated but deeply suggestive and often beautiful ideas that have flowered violently in the last 100 years.' New York Times Book Review `Warner moves with a high-wire walker's assurance, from Ovid, Bosch and Dante to James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and on to Nabokov's Lolita and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. In addition, she makes several seductive moves toward that enormous threat to intellectual history, the movies[?], as if well aware that when it comes to mutating, hatching, splitting and doubling (her chosen topics on which metamorphosis works) the large screen, its savage if magical cuts and lingering dissolves, are what you might call the cat's whiskers ... Especially when looking at Bosch, Warner sees something like fluency in the rampant, exhilarating way forms can find new shapes. This is Warner at her playful best.' New York Times Book Review `Warner is a modern Renaissance woman, at ease in a multi-disciplinary world of art, literature, and science.' Independent Magazine `Warner's method of invoking these myths is deft and dextrous' Independent Magazine `In this zest for the random fruit of research, Renaissance syncretism, nurturing new variants of ancient tales, produced a delicious, organised chaos. This is close to the yolky, juicy, sappy and fructifying cornucopia on which Warner feats her readers.' Independent magazine `Her supple, humorous and warm style wears its scholarship lightly.' Independent magazine `The continued power of ancient mythology to shape art and writing is illuminated with all [Warner's] usual postmodern pyrotechnical brilliance.' Donald Lee, Art Newspaper `Marina Warner's greatest talent is perhaps her ability to spot cultural preoccupations long before they become part of the zeitgeist.' Amanda Craig, The Times `Who but Warner could have written with such elegance and brilliance on our continuing need for fairytales.' Amanda Craig, The Times `It would be good to have this wise woman as our guide as we chose which of Hieronymous Bosch's versions to make real.' Amanda Craig, The Times `Warner's gift is for inspired juxapostition. Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds is less an argument than a magic lantern show that takes us from Caribbean creation myths all the way to the personal demons of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials triology.' David Jays, Observer `What makes Fantastic Metamorphoses remarkable is its dashing investigation of imagination.' David Jays, Observer `Her gift, whether in her works of fiction or non-fiction, has been to give shape and credibility to myth and fairy tale, showing how this world of the fantastical connects 3ith the patterns and routines of everyday existence.' Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard `Warner's book uses a bewildering array of different works of art and literature to illustrate her taxonomy of metamorphosis.' David Honigmann, Financial Times

Marina Warner is a prize-winning writer of fiction, criticism, and history. Ranges from the classic writings on metamorphosis of Ovid and Apuleius through Dante, Shakespeare, and Coleridge, to Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Toni Morrison, as well as the works of such artists as Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Hieronymous Bosch. Incorporates discussion of both art and literature.

Marina Warner is a prize-winning writer of fiction, criticism, and history. Ranges from the classic writings on metamorphosis of Ovid and Apuleius through Dante, Shakespeare, and Coleridge, to Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Toni Morrison, as well as the works of such artists as Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Hieronymous Bosch. Incorporates discussion of both art and literature.