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The author of the papers collected in this volume was one of Freud's earliest collaborators. They were originally published between 1914 and 1934, and deal mainly with the application of psycho-analysis to problems of history and literature. Jekels was well equipped for this task, owing to his wide knowledge, and throughout the book his erudition gives his papers a special flavour and makes their reading stimulating. His mind is not lacking in originality. The paper on 'The Psychology of Comedy' deals with a subject to which, so far as the reviewer knows, no other psycho-analyst has devoted a full paper. Comedy is concerned with the same unconscious conflict as tragedy, but the 'guilt which, in tragedy, rests upon the son, appears in comedy displaced on to the father; it is the father who is guilty'.
The first and longest paper of the book, 'The Turning-Point in the Life of Napoleon I', which was first published in 1914, deals with the unconscious problems in Napoleon's life in terms of the Oedipus situation. The turning-point is the dramatic change in Napoleon's life: from being an ardent Corsican nationalist who fought against the French, he turned to the French and became identified with them. This attitude was made possible for Napoleon by his having split his father imago, for each aspect of which there was a reality figure: Paoli, the hero of Corsican liberation, and Napoleon's own father who stood for a union with France. Napoleon's indignation with the invading foreigners had also a personal basis, as his mother, Madame Letizia, was accused of being 'more than a friend' to Marbeuf, Governor of Corsica and Lieutenant-General