This engaging and witty cultural history traces the evolution of the mirror from antiquity to the present day, illustrating its journey from wondrous object to ordinary trinket. With its earliest invention, the mirror allowed us to gaze upon ourselves, bestowing a power both fascinating and terrifying. Drawing on rich sources of history, literature, art and philosophy, Melchior-Bonnet recounts the story of intrigue. Through the works of such writers as Dante, St. Augustine, Flaubert, and Henry James, and its representations in the works of artists like Durer, Van Eyck, Leonardo, and Magritte, the author reveals our enduring fascination with reflection, the image that is at once the same, and not the same, as ourselves.