The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a book by mythologist Joseph Campbell. Originally published in 1948, it has sold nearly one million copies in various editions.
It traces the stages of a hero archetype's journey and transformation through many traditional mythologies of the world. In the process, it uses many of the theories of Carl Jung, such as the concept of the collective unconscious.
Campbell called this archetypical hero's journey the monomyth.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been cited as an inspiration by many students, filmmakers (most notably George Lucas), novelists, and comic book creators.