Memory studies is an intellectually vibrant, yet still emergent field. Many disciplines meet there, but hardly as yet converge. Effective interdisciplinary synthesis will no doubt take some time to develop, and will be the work of divers hands. While we hope to make some contribution to this, our aim in what lies ahead is relatively modest. It is directed at certain critical issues in the recent study of memory which have so far been largely ignored, and at certain aspects of current thinking and practice which we believe should be reconsidered. The main area of neglect which we deal with, and address throughout the book, is the relationship between memory and imagination. Imagination and imaginative engagement are of vital importance in acts and processes of remembering. In focusing on both particular and divergent past scenes and scenarios, they help us integrate memories into a relatively coherent pattern of meaning that informs our sense of a life as we have lived it. They enable us to establish continuities and shifts in the trajectories of our experience over time, and creatively transform memory into a resource for thinking about the transactions between past, present and future. Yet in seeking to explore the significance of imagination for memory, we have to a great extent found memory studies deficient. Their relationship is one from which the field has so far shied away.