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On the cover of this book is a detail from Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights which serves as a powerful metaphor of the Unconscious, as does the title On a Darkling Plain. The surreal and bizarre images on a black background from which stares a watchful eye point directly to the revolutionary discoveries made by Sigmund Freud a century ago when he turned from neurology to psychopathology and began his lifelong work on mapping the unconscious mind. The book has the ambitious plan to ‘reinstate psychoanalysis as a valid, exciting and original language with which to comprehend our troubled and unstable world’. Offering ‘10 Journeys into the Unconscious’ by eminent psychoanalysts who tackle different key concepts of Freud's theory, it sets out to fulfil this promise from the blurb, which is no mean task. Though many of the essays are excellent in the exposition and illustration of their chosen themes, the project as a whole does not quite come off, as the diversity of writers and styles works against the unity of purpose this would require, and the end result is more of a vivid patchwork than a persuasive re-evaluation of Freud's magnificent