'Let me declare an interest right away. My persuit of twins, far from being dispassionate is deeply autobiographical. The idea for this anthology arose from a piece I wrote which insisted on centring itself round the death of my twin sister...'Thus begins Penelope Farmer's extraordinary autobiographical anthology of twins and doubles. Bravely and beautifully using her own story to introduce and define each section, this marvellous, eccentrically varied choice of extracts takes us through the labyrinth of myths, fears, and longings from birth and parenthood (proud and horrified), through the love and hate that simultaneously binds and divides two souls, to the crisis (or relief) of separation and death. She looks at the freakish fascination that only twins and doubles can provoke and illuminates through fiction and nonfiction the non-twin's eternal envy and fear of the 'born couple', and the myths of twins as sacred or taboo. This leads to an exploration of reflections, shadows and alter egos, ending with the recurring splits and doubles in many writers' works and lives.Her exhaustive collection of over two hundred and fifty authors' works, draws from myth to contemporary fiction, from folklore to psychology, from scientists' to twins' accounts of themselves. Read Less