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This is a big book; in fact it is several books. It is at once the lively and revealing account, through letters, of the analysis that the poet Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) underwent with Freud for three months in 1933 and for five weeks in 1934—the “back story,” so to speak, to Tribute to Freud, H.D.'s well-known (if little read) memoir of her analysis. It is as well a vivid picture of the inner life and daily concerns of H.D. and her companion Bryher (the pen name of Annie Winifred Ellerman), and their circle of friends, many of whom became significant modernist writers. Friedman, an H.D. scholar whose work on the book was in part supported by a grant from the American Psychoanalytic Association, is well aware of the wide net her book casts, and its importance to both the psychoanalytic community and the academic community. She has successfully provided guidance to both groups.
Friedman has done a masterful job of bringing organization to what could otherwise feel like an overwhelming mass of historical material. She organizes the letters around the two periods of H.D.'s analysis, with a Prologue for the period leading up to the analysis, a section titled “Between the Acts” for the period between the two analyses, and an Epilogue. The letters between H.D. and Bryher during the first analysis she labels Act I. These are broken into weekly clusters. The letters in “Between the Acts” are divided into annual clusters. The letters in Act II—from the second analysis—are divided into two groups. Each week of letters, and each larger section, is preceded by Friedman's commentary—essays of wit and concision—that provide biographical, historical, aesthetic, and theoretical context for the letters that follow. These commentaries could well be read on their own. Friedman also