This is a fantasy novel with many fairy-tale elements. Larkin, the hero of this story, is a romantic youth who matures through encounters with women and with the images that spring from his own imagination. Like all young men, he experiences many strivings, hopes, fears, frustrations, and conflicts as he seeks to relate to the feminine side of life.

At the outset, Larkin dreams of a beautiful woman. Believing his destiny lies with her, he leaves home to find her. He hears of a sleeping princess inside a castle. Naive and reckless at this stage of his journey, he tries to hack his way through the surrounding shrubbery. The bushes trap him, however, and as he struggles he meets a peasant girl named Shanna.

After leaving that setting, he faces new challenges in the heart of a forest. They include an ogress and an overprotective giantess. Seeking to escape from their clutches, he meets and rescues a young boy named Billum. His subsequent travels bring him face to face with a woman of quiet spirituality, with a seductress, and with a hag whose beauty lies hidden beneath the surface.

He has still more adventures with Brinna, an agile young woman accompanied by a wolf. She comes to his aid at a crucial moment and enlists his help in rescuing Selador--her father, a great sorcerer--from Morlon, his sinister rival. Together, Larkin, Brinna, and the wolf must confront not only Morlon but the evil sorcerer's son and daughter as well. Larkin comes to regard Brinna as a sister in spirit and to recognize the feminine as an ally in his own quest.

After departing from his companions, Larkin plunges into a dream world in the heart of a mountain, where he encounters three singing maidens, a mysterious feminine guide, and an old wise woman. As a result of this immersion, he realizes that to fulfill his quest he must seek "the face behind the face" of the princess of his dreams.

Richard Welton Coan, a Professor Emeritus of the University of Arizona, resides in Tucson.

As a child he began composing music and writing stories and poems. He contemplated a career as a musician or writer, but he was also intrigued by the puzzles of human consciousness, the sense of personal identity, and the varied idiosyncrasies of the people he knew. His search for understanding led him to the study of psychology and ultimately to a career in that field. At both the University of California and the University of Southern California, he pursued graduate studies leading to a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1955.

As a professor, he specialized in personality theory and measurement. His published books and articles cover such topics as the evolution of consciousness, masculinity/femininity, child personality, various notions of optimal personality and adjustment, patterns of orientation among psychologists, and trends in psychological theory. His interests include Jungian theory, archetypal symbolism, myths and tales, dreams, Eastern thought, and the psychology of religion.

As a psychologist, he came to appreciate both the value and the limitations of scientific theory and research as tools for understanding. He recognized that poets and novelists can often highlight questions and puzzles of human existence that psychology as a discipline avoids dealing with directly. At times poetry and fiction provide deeper and more vivid insights into human nature and consciousness than those presented by psychologists.

He has composed music for piano, various instrumental ensembles, and voice. As a poet he has endeavored to capture pivotal moments in his own experience. As a novelist he has dealt with characters in very different life settings, attempting to show how each sees the world and makes the choices he does. He has completed three novels:

(1) A Princess for Larkin--This is a fantasy centering on the encounters of a young male hero with the feminine realm. At the outset he is a naive youth chasing a dream, but he grows toward manhood as he learns from his adventures.

(2) Horatio--This is the story of Horatio, a close friend of Hamlet. His life becomes interwoven with that of the Danish prince, and the events portrayed in Shakespeare's version of the Hamlet tale serve as background for the story.

(3) Shaul of Tarsos: This is a fictionalized treatment of the life of St. Paul, starting with his boyhood in Tarsus and ending with his death in Rome. It depicts the mental and emotional qualities, events, conflicts, and experiences that might have enabled this man to create a religion that has served to shape Western civilization for almost two thousand years.

The maidens lifted him from the water onto a ledge. Then he no longer felt their gentle touch. He heard a soft splash. He no longer heard their song. They had cast him alone into the silent blackness, and they had vanished. Why had they left him there? What could he do now? What must he do? Well, the maidens did not mean to drown him after all. If this was a burial vault, he was surely here before his time. Yet this did not feel like life as he had known it. Was he dreaming? Was he truly dead, and was death a land where one lies awake in eternal darkness?

His eyes grew more accustomed to the dim surroundings, and he realized the chamber was not in total blackness, though he still could not see the walls. The faint illumination was coming from behind him. He looked around and discovered a corridor leading away from the ledge on which he sat, and in that corridor standing very still was a young woman holding a small oil lamp. He could not see her clearly, but he sensed something familiar about her. Who could she be? he wondered. Had he seen her somewhere before?

He stepped through this entrance and noticed he was now in a long, wide hallway. It contained no furniture, carpets, or tapestries. In here, he could near nothing except the faint sound of his own footsteps on the stone floor and their soft echo on the corridor walls. He walked down the hallway. He soon reached a doorway that permitted entry into an immense ballroom, softly illuminated by windows close to the high ceiling.

The interior of the castle remained in the utter silence that had filled it for countless years. This was like stepping back a hundred years in time. Yet when he stepped into the ballroom, he discovered he was not alone. Near the other side of the room, quietly facing him, stood a young woman. He drew a quick breath, and his heart beat a little faster. Yes, this was a lady he was destined to meet, for in dream after dream he had already met her here in this very place. She was someone he had always known and someone who would live within him and beside him forever. At a distance in this light he could not see her face clearly, and he advanced slowly, trembling slightly and fearing to break the magic of the moment.