In this lucid and highly readable book, Peter France shows how hermits, from the Taoists and Ancient Greeks to the present day, have something vitally important to say to a society that fears solitude.

And, as Gordon Campbell shows, they live on in the art, literature, and drama of our own day - as well as in the figure of the modern-day garden gnome.

On a weekend trip to the beach, a family visits their friend, a hermit named Robert who lives at Fort Fisher, N.C.

A history of hermits and eremitism from antiquity to the present: Greco-Roman influences, early Christianity, hermits in medieval Europe and East Asia, decline in Western modernity, the rise of solitude, and rehabilitation of hermits.

A Hermit's Secret tells the story of a lifelong friendship that forms between a mysterious hermit and a high school boy.