The spontaneous imaginings of childhood have a unique fascination. They take various forms, including make-believe, the creation of imaginary companions, pretence and day-dreaming. One less common but delightful form of imagining is the spontaneous creation of an imaginary private world, which for a considerable period keeps recurring and thereby tends to become elaborated and systematized. Such paracosms, as the authors call them, vary widely, according to the age at which they begin, the time for which they continue, and the influence of such factors as gender and family. In this study David Cohen, film maker and psychologist, and Stephen MacKeith, retired psychiatrist, have gathered together and explored the material relating to over 60 examples of such private worlds. The result is a study of an imaginative activity that has been part of the childhood of such brilliant and creative minds as Friedrich Nietzsche, Anthony Trollope, Thomas de Quincey, C.S. Lewis and Robert Louis Stevenson. This book should be of interest to developmental and child psychologists, child psychiatrists, and teaching professionals.
- ISBN10 041504636X
- ISBN13 9780415046367
- Publish Date 29 October 1992 (first published 1 November 1990)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 8 November 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Routledge
- Edition New edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 128
- Language English