Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0345358473, Paperback)

A provocative and highly articulate meditation on solitude, Anthony Storr explores the connection between solitude and the creative personality. From the great to the obscure, Storr examines the uses that all kinds of people make of solitude in times of bereavement and depression, in escaping from the pressures of daily life, in communing with a higher power through prayer, and in finding and expressing their deepest selves.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0743280741, Paperback)

Originally published in 1988, Anthony Storr's enlightening meditation on the creative individual's need for solitude has become a classic.

Solitude was seminal in challenging the established belief that "interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness." Indeed, most self-help literature still places relationships at the center of human existence. Lucid and lyrical, Storr's book cites numerous examples of brilliant scholars and artists -- from Beethoven and Kant to Anne Sexton and Beatrix Potter -- to demonstrate that solitude ranks alongside relationships in its impact on an individual's well-being and productivity, as well as on society's progress and health. But solitary activity is essential not only for geniuses, says Storr; the average person, too, is enriched by spending time alone.

For fifteen years, readers have found inspiration and renewal in Storr's erudite, compassionate vision of human experience.