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In an illuminating foreword Brett Kahr (p. xvii) writes, “By taking time to engage fully with this book one feels stimulated, enhanced, educated, and treated to a real ‘master class’ in history, theory, and technique.” Its structure and style will keep you captivated until you sadly come to its end. The book arrived unexpectedly, and quite coincidentally, as I was preparing lectures on Klein and Jung, involving some history of the early psychoanalytic movement. I was fascinated by this rather attractive book about a man who had close connections with both these pioneers. As I reviewed the long list of chapters, and leafed through, I gathered a sense of the first days of psychoanalysis, its fragility, and the character of its initial “secret committee” of pioneers, in which Abraham was prominent. The usual complement of early black and white photographs aided this ambience. In the Introduction, the author describes her growing interest in this man she clearly became enamoured with, asserting that at the end of his life “he had the most important leadership role in the world of psychoanalysis after Freud” (p. xxiii). Accordingly, the chapter headings are descriptors of key events in psychoanalysis as much as events in Abraham's life. The author presents extant material as evidence, but also covers intriguing questions about gaps in his life, helping to place him more fully in his social milieu. It is supported by extensive notes and a list of sources following the main text. She presents him as attractive, cheerful, polite and friendly, steadfast and sanguine. The picture is of a life full of limitations and turbulence, and yet one of determination, integrity, and potential. Chapter Twenty-eight, titled “Abraham's death” starts with the subheading, “The year began promisingly”, but anxiety about his health grew through the year, while some of his colleagues continued to take him for granted. This discourse, of a promising life, pervades the book, until the last two p