Patrick Harpur is an acclaimed author, best known for his philosophical works, which include The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History Of The Imagination and Mercurius: The Marriage Of Heaven and Earth , the latter of which, after being out of print for several years (and fetching a small fortune on auction sites like eBay) has finally been re-released in a paperback edition. Other works include Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld and The Serpent's Circle . He currently has a couple of new projects in the pipeline, including The Stormy Petrel, a fictional biography of Søren Kirkegaard, and The Savoy Truffle, a witty, dramatic novel about life in Britain's richest, wildest Surrey suburb in the early 1960s. Patrick Harpur lives near Dorchester in Dorset.