Mind's Best Work

Over the years, tales about the creative process have flourished-tales of sudden insight and superior intelligence and personal eccentricity. Coleridge claimed that he wrote "e;Kubla Khan"e; in one sitting after an opium-induced dream. Poe declared that his "e;Raven"e; was worked out "e;with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem."e;D. N. Perkins discusses the creative episodes of Beethoven, Mozart, Picasso, and others in this exploration of the creative process in the arts, sciences, and everyday life.