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SIGMUND FREUD/WILHELM FLIESS LETTERS |
Authors: Sigmund Freud Jeffrey Moussaieff MassonOriginal Publisher: S. Fischer Verlag |
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Rights Sold:World - Amorrortu Editores SAItaly - BOLLATI BORINGHIERI Germany - S Fischer Verlag GmbH United States - Harvard University Press South America - INTERNATIONAL FREUDIAN FOUND. Brasil - Imago Editora Ltda France - Presses Universitaires de France Japan - Seishin Shobo Ltd Romania - The Sigmund Freud Romanian Translation and Publication Fund English - World - Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing Spain - RBA Coleccionables S.A. |
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Sigmund Freud's letters to his closest friend, Wilhelm Fliess, are probably the single most important group of documents in the history of psychoanalysis. At no time intended for publication, the letters date from 1887 to 1904, a period that spans the birth and early development of psychoanalysis. During the seventeen years of the correspondence Freud wrote some of his most revolutionary works: Studies in Hysteria, The Interpretation of Dreams, The Aetiology of Hysteria, and the famous case history of Dora. Presented here, without any excisions, are 133 documents never before made public and 139 previously published only in part. The translation is based on a new and corrected German text, and unobtrusive annotation assists the reader with difficult allusions, but permits individual interpretation of the material at hand.Seldom has the creator of a totally new field of human knowledge so overtly and in such detail revealed the thought processes leading to his discoveries. None of the later writings have immediacy and the impact of these early letters, nor do any reveal so dramatically Freud's innermost thoughts as he was in the very act of creation. We watch Freud draft and refine his theories, feel his rejection by scientific colleagues, and sense his professional isolation. As his friendship with Fliess grows and deepens, the two men meet periodically to exchange ideas and support each other's endeavours. Freud turns more and more to his friend as an "audience of one", but in the end is spurned by Fliess too. Interspersed with Freud's intellectual activities are passages on the events of everyday life - his children's antics, his hiking vacations, his financial worries, his efforts to stop smoking. No biography could depict so fully the many-faceted man who springs to life from these letters. The translator and editor, Jeffrey Masson, was formerly projects editor of the Sigmund Freud Archives. His other publications include Assault on Truth and Against Therapy. The American and British editions, published by Harvard University Press, in hardback format 240mm x 160mm, amounts to 520 pages and contains 22 black and white illustrations. |
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