Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds

... this irresistibly styled and splendidly illustrated treatment of generation, evolution, growth, and decay touches most of the mythological - and many of the literary-artistic - bases, but goes beyond them to encompass photography, cultural anthropology, folklore, and lepidoptery ... Strongly recommended. Virginia Quarterly Review Arcane information for its own sake isn't Warner's game, nor is art-historical sleuthing, though both contribute to the fine-grained pleasures of this book. James Lasdun, London Review of Books 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 ... an erudite work of cultural history that generously acknowledges debts to a vast community of scholars Times Higher Education Supplement 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. New York Times 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 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 trilogy. David Jays, Observer Who but Warner could have written with such elegance and brilliance on our continuing need for fairytales. Amanda Craig, The Times