The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Joseph CampbellThe Hero with a Thousand Faces

Copyright Notice

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF.org)

United States of America

Electronic edition (with revisions and additions) copyright © 2020 by Joseph Campbell Foundation

Third edition (with revisions) copyright © 2008 by the Joseph Campbell Foundation

Second edition (with revisions) copyright © 1968 by Princeton University Press

Original edition copyright © 1949 by Bollingen Foundation and published by Pantheon Books

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For information about this edition, see the Editor's Note.

For sources used, see the Bibliography section.

For sources of images use and other acknowledgments, see the Illustrations list.

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The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell

At his death in 1987, Joseph Campbell left a significant body of published work that explored his lifelong passion, the complex of universal myths and symbols that he called “Mankind’s one great story.” He also left, however, a large volume of unreleased work: uncollected articles, notes, letters, and diaries, as well as audio- and videotape-recorded lectures.

Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF) — founded in 1990 to preserve, protect, and perpetuate Campbell’s work — has undertaken to create a digital archive of his papers and recordings and to publish The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell.

Robert Walter, Executive Editor

David Kudler, Managing Editor

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL

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Audio:

TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER

Table of Contents

About the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell

Editor's Foreword to the 2020 Collected Works Edition

Notes on the Text

PREFACE TO THE 1949 EDITION

PROLOGUE - The Monomyth

1. Myth and Dream

2. Tragedy and Comedy

3. The Hero and the God

4. The World Navel

PART I - The Adventure of the Hero

CHAPTER I - Departure

1. The Call to Adventure

2. Refusal of the Call

3. Supernatural Aid

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold

5. The Belly of the Whale

CHAPTER II - Initiation

1. The Road of Trials

2. The Meeting with the Goddess

3. Woman as the Temptress

4. Atonement with the Father

5. Apotheosis

6. The Ultimate Boon

CHAPTER III - Return

1. Refusal of the Return

2. The Magic Flight

3. Rescue from Without

4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold

5. Master of the Two Worlds

6. Freedom to Live

CHAPTER IV - The Keys

PART II - The Cosmogonic Cycle

CHAPTER I - Emanations

1. From Psychology to Metaphysics

2. The Universal Round

3. Out of the Void — Space

4. Within Space — Life

5. The Breaking of the One into the Manifold

6. Folk Stories of Creation

CHAPTER II - The Virgin Birth

1. Mother Universe

2. Matrix of Destiny

3. Womb of Redemption

4. Folk Stories of Virgin Motherhood

CHAPTER III - Transformations of the Hero

1. The Primordial Hero and the Human

2. Childhood of the Human Hero

3. The Hero as Warrior

4. The Hero as Lover

5. The Hero as Emperor and as Tyrant

6. The Hero as World Redeemer

7. The Hero as Saint

8. Departure of the Hero

CHAPTER IV - Dissolutions

1. End of the Microcosm

2. End of the Macrocosm

EPILOGUE - Myth and Society

1. The Shapeshifter

2. The Function of Myth, Cult, and Meditation

3. The Hero Today

Annotated Bibliography

About Joseph Campbell

About the Joseph Campbell Foundation

Acknowledgements

Illustrations List

Editor's Foreword

to the 2020 Collected Works Edition

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was a pre-eminent American scholar of literature and comparative mythology.