Immediately after World War I, four major European and American poets and thinkers - W. B. Yeats, Robinson Jeffers, R. M. Rilke, and C. G. Jung - moved into towers as their principal habitations. Taking this striking coincidence as its starting point, this book sets out to locate modern turriphilia in its cultural context and to explore the biographical circumstances that motivated the four writers to choose their unusual retreats.

From the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia to the ivory towers of the fin de siecle, the author traces the emergence of a variety of symbolic associations with the proud towers of the past, ranging from spirituality and intellect to sexuality and sequestration.