1. In many conversations I had about this book during the years when it was being written, the explanation most commonly offered as to why we like stories was that they satisfy our need for ‘escapism’. Certainly this describes the way we often use stories, as a means to escape out of the ‘real world’ into that realm of fantasy or imagination we find so beguiling. But in no way does it explain why we should be able to find diversion in this particular way. As soon as we begin to explore the psychology behind our ability to imagine stories, it becomes obvious that this ‘explanation’ in fact explains nothing.

2. Frustratingly, there is no reference to this in the extensive surviving correspondence between Schiller and Gozzi, the leading German and Italian playwrights of their day. At the beginning of the twentieth century George Polti was inspired by Goethe’s reference to compile his own, somewhat laborious, survey, The Thirty Six Dramatic Situations. While he goes into elaborate detail about such motifs as ‘Supplication of the Beloved By Those Dear to the Suppliant’, Polti is not, however, concerned with actual plots so much as mere ‘situations’; and only with ‘tragic situations’ at that.

3. Introduction to The Classic Fairy Tales, Peter and Iona Opie (Oxford University Press, 1974).