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I am already looking forward to seeing [my biographers] go astray.—FREUD, 1885
When Freud wrote these lines to his bride, he would surely have been surprised if anyone had told him that the study of his future papers would some day make the biographer's task of interpreting that very letter less hazardous than it was at the time when he was expressing a somewhat malicious joy over the future biographer's anticipated failure. Likewise, he probably would have been quite incredulous if he had been told then that the publication of 315 of his letters would one day arouse the greatest interest. For so it does, not only among those who are interested in psychoanalysis, but also among those concerned with the cultural process, or, more specifically, with the creative process.
This selection of Freud's letters, excellently put together by Ernst Freud, offers a panorama of rewarding richness. The reader can obtain a glimpse of Freud's adolescence and a deep view of his courtship with Martha Bernays; can watch him in his dealings with his wife, mother, children, friends, pupils, or on his travels to Paris, Dresden or Rome. One listens to the words of consolation that Freud wrote when friends fell sick or were bereaved of those whom they loved; one learns of Freud's emotional response to the death of his mother and his daughter, and to his own unimaginable sufferings when he was seized by a terrible disease.