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The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Written by: Joseph Campbell
Narrated by: Arthur Morey,John Lee,Susan Denaker
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Publisher's Summary

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

As relevant today as when it was first published, The Hero with a Thousand Faces continues to find new audiences in fields ranging from religion and anthropology to literature and film studies. The book has also profoundly influenced creative artists - including authors, songwriters, game designers, and filmmakers - and continues to inspire all those interested in the inherent human need to tell stories.

©2008 The Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org). Third edition (with revisions) / 1968 by Princeton University Press. Second edition (with revisions) / 1949 by Bollingen Foundation and published by Pantheon Books. (Original edition), year 2008 (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

What the critics say

"Arthur Morey, John Lee, and Susan Denaker are an adept and experienced performance team. The way they trade voices adds texture to the complex compendium of stories." ( AudioFile)

What listeners love about The Hero with a Thousand Faces

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    2 out of 5 stars

Not sure why this is a classic.

Moments of goodness, but mostly a dull wander that needed only 3 chapters. Not one I would recommend.

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4 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

A very hard listen but informative

Book is very philosophical and at times hard to follow. It's way too long for the content as well

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Kinda Sucked

The sample is very different from the rest of the book...

I love philosophic works but this was just too all over the place and filled with references to ancient stories and figures that I was not always familiar with, which made a lot of the book practically nonsensical. Even for all of the references I did get, the book was just dreary. I tried to keep going with it but I just stopped.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Very difficult to understand.Ray Dalio recommended

Maybe I'm too dumb for this book, but I couldn't grasp it's arguments at all. very philosophical and vague. Almost like an abstract painting that is open to interpretation.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Yesss

Everyone should hear this or read it! This book is absolutely amazing I would recommend it to anybody!

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  • Leo
  • 2018-07-20

Great*

Ending gets a bit repetetive. Main narrator's "s"'s will kill your ears if you're using headphones.

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  • Learner
  • 2016-02-09

Meaningful and thought-provoking

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This is of course a classic, valued by artists, novelists and humanities-lovers for decades. Interesting note: George Lucas and Star Wars were heavily influences by this book.

Outside of religious scripture, this is one of the most meaningful and thought-provoking books I've read. Drawing on archetypes - deep universal constructs in our human psyche - Campbell explains how we are all on (or could be on) a meaningful heroic journey.

This book was written when the ideas of Freud and Jung were all the rage. Freud has not aged too well. But Jung had a lot of intuition about the human soul that still resonates.

Campbell includes many fascinating accounts of dreams and world myths. "Myth" in this sense means a story with meaningful symbols that convey universal insights, as well as teaching the values of the culture in which the myth originated. Jung and Freud believed that dreams and myths contain subconscious truths.

I've owned the hard copy for years but found it difficult reading. I don't think Campbell was a great writer. But his ideas are mind-blowing. In audio-book form I have finally been able to enjoy this book. I highly recommend it.

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176 people found this helpful

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2016-11-03

Very good if hungry for more Campbell

Where does The Hero with a Thousand Faces rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is an earlier work of Campbell, but not at all where I would start. Start with The Power of Myth and The Wisdom of Joseph Campbell and hear Campbell in his own voice. Much clearer and much greater impact. They are much more accessible, and once hear Campbell in his own voice you'll much more easily be able to access his more scholarly works and you'll also be more forgiving of the passionless, reading of Arthur Morey. The reader was a real miss on this one. But the deeper exploration on myth is fantastic.

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125 people found this helpful

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  • DBruno1987
  • 2016-10-25

Hard to finish

I love the ideas that Joseph Campbell has given us in his career. I just don't think this book is a concise enough presentation of those ideas. I listen to lots of different audio books while driving, and many are very engaging. This one just wasn't... I could never follow what was being presented, and it seemed all over the place. I don't think the material was "over my head," I just think I got bored listening to it. Often times the quotes from the myths and stories read by the female and the british narrators were just thrown in without introduction or explanation. I would occasionally hear an idea that resonated with me, where I'd think "ohhh cool!" But that happened only once in a while, in the middle of a sea or drawn out boring narration.

Sorry, love JC, but not this audiobook:

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125 people found this helpful

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2017-05-05

The Connections between the Myths

This is a book I have been meaning to read for years. Literally. And now I have finally learned what all the fuss is about. Campbell takes the reader/listener on an intellectual journey showing the common themes, characters, and events (plot developments?) to the myths of the world. This is an awesome feat and in no way should be seen as denigrating the beauty and power of the world's mythologies and religious traditions. Campbell was an intellectual of the first order and he makes his enthusiasm for the subject a contagious thing. Now I see why this book had such a profound impact on George Lucas and how he drew so heavily on it in constructing his Star Wars mythos (and since I am writing this on Star Wars day--May the Fourth be with you all!). Loved this book and will look for more titles by Campbell and other writers about the ideas in this classic.

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38 people found this helpful

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  • Michael J. Stewart
  • 2017-09-25

A test to see how bad you want answers

The test is in the form of the main narrator. He’s slow in reading every word and very dull. Then again this is not for those who wish to be entertained, but for those who are seeking clarity on the origins of their belief system and to have their mind opened to the fact that all religions and mythology are seeking to describe that which is eternal in ways that allow us to grasp in a very small measure the nature of all that was, all that is, and all that will be.

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37 people found this helpful

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  • Summers McKay
  • 2016-10-11

rough narration good content

it was disappointing that such rich material was a bit like listening to paint dry. I really did not enjoy this production.

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29 people found this helpful

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  • Jason Cook
  • 2017-12-21

good book, though tougher to follow on audio forma

would suggest you get the physical book, great stories and context to patterns across all cultures

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  • See Reverse
  • 2018-09-29

The Listener with a Thousand Pauses

I love stories, and having heard this book mentioned in a number of other books I decided to dive in and experience it for myself. I'm not sure what I expected of this book, but I was expecting some sort of "greatness" from it. While I'll agree that this is a thoughtful, and thorough treatment of the art of storytelling, and the commonality of stories across cultures, I'm not sure it's worth listening to unless you're really deep into understanding stories over time. Listening to this book required frequent pauses, both so I could understand and appreciate, and so that I could rest. This book has the feel of a 14 hour lecture, taught day after day in a dark lecture hall by a bland lecturer. I'll admit that this was probably the style back in 1949 when this book was written, but for most listeners I think you're better suited with something derived from this master work than with this original.

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  • Scott Monson
  • 2016-07-05

I could listen to this a 1000 times...

I would have to listen to this audio presentation a 1000 time to grasp the depth of this material.
Yet, I feel as if I have accomplished something getting through it once.
My gray matter is on fire. 😀🔥😀

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  • Dorota
  • 2016-10-10

Brilliant

This is truly an amazing work. It is beautifully performed, though, unfortunately, the use of narrators with differing intonation, strong accent, and old-style pronunciation, sometimes makes the audio difficult to understand.

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  • Client d'Amazon
  • 2023-08-15

Ramblings without a purpose

I labored through the first three chapters of this book, and I’m still not sure what’s it about. The author jumps from circumcision to the Minotaur and then to a woman, who dreamt that a horse was following her. It’s all wrapped in a fluff of words which makes it hard to concentrate and follow the narrative… though I’m not sure if there’s one.

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