How to protect the gift of creativity in a world dominated by the mercantile spirit in which everything is for sale? In a society that conceives of "utility" in a pragmatic way, associating it with consumerism and the material gains of the here and now, how can we persuade ourselves that the true interest of literature, art or music is in the antipodes of "what is"? useful"? Unlike money, imagination multiplies the more it is wasted, the more it is shared. Precisely at a time when – to paraphrase Oscar Wilde – the price of everything and the value of nothing are known, safeguarding the purity of the creative gesture from all spurious conditioning alien to art is safeguarding our dignity as a species, saving our soul – understood as a collective bond, not as an ego– of the destructive capitalist voracity. And that, without a doubt, is something that is priceless.

Since it was published forty years ago, The Gift has become an unappealable classic that has deeply influenced figures such as David Foster Wallace, Bill Viola and Margaret Atwood. Drawing on anthropology, sociology, fairy tales, and the poetry of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, Lewis Hyde builds a capital, subtle, transformative work, and an emotional and enduring vindication of the powers of art.