Christopher Booker's Seven Basic Plots

The seven basic plots is the name of Christopher Booker's magnum opus, which runs nearly 800 pages. Over about 40 years, he traveled around the world, and he read stories from a whole number of global cultures. He reckons that there are seven plot lines that keep occurring and reoccurring and reoccurred. The oldest he says is called overcoming the monster - an idea that there is this fearsome creature that needs to be overcome. Second one he would talk about is rags to riches: you have this figure who is overlooked in life but then dramatically changes their circumstances so people see them as they really are.