Many years ago I was a patient of the psychiatrist author of this book. I was twenty two at the time and suffering from a combination of loneliness, emotional difficulties and the disadvantages of being a junior member of a large philistine family. The only way I could sustain myself was by the belief that I was a comic genius. During my two sessions in his Harley Street consulting rooms, Dr Storr would have none of this. He told me that I was covering up my sense of inadequacy with delusions of grandeur. If I didn’t agree I should get another opinion. If I really was a genius, I wouldn’t need reassurance about it, or words to that effect.

Over the years, I have still not completely come to terms with my lack of genius although I now more or less agree with Dr Storr’s diagnosis at that time. Meanwhile, Dr Storr himself has taken up the subject of genius in a big way. This is his second book