The Heroine with 1001 Faces Paperback - 2022

From the rear cover

"A profound and heartfelt offering from Maria Tatar. . . . Her work suggests that the threads of the Greek fates, and of Penelope's handiwork, so trickily woven by day and unraveled at night, are of the same clever substance as that from which the spider Charlotte weaves words into her miraculous web. This book, like Charlotte's final web publication, is, simply stated: radiant."
--Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and The Brides of Maracoor

"In Greek mythology, Philomela's rapist cut out her tongue so that she wouldn't expose him. Today's assaulters rely on nondisclosure agreements, but their goal is the same: to silence women. . . . The Heroine with 1,001 Faces traces sources ancient and contemporary--from ancient mythology and The Thousand and One Nights to Charlotte's Web and #MeToo--to demonstrate both the revolutionary power of women's speech and the shocking ways in which its suppression is embedded in the very foundations of our culture."
--Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

"This erudite and lively work mixes inventive reading of classic tales with a survey of modern heroines in books and movies. . . . Going forward, everyone from kindergarten teachers to movie moguls will have to have The Heroine with 1,001 Faces at hand before they begin their work."
--Lewis Hyde, author of Trickster Makes This World

"Finally. We had to wait far too long for this book! And of course, Maria Tatar wrote it. . . . The Heroine with 1,001 Faces brings life, but she also weaves the yarns of fate and delivers death. Tatar knows where to find her behind all her masks."
--Cornelia Funke, author of Inkheart

"In this volume, Maria Tatar draws on her decades of scholarship in mythology and folklore to reevaluate our notions of the concept of heroism to transcend gendered divisions. . . . A deeply personal and lively investigation."
--Henry Louis Gates Jr.