The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: Translated from the German under the General Editorship of James Strachey, in collaboration with Anna Freud, assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson.

Vol. II (1893–1895). Studies on Hysteria. (By Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud.)

Vol. XVII (1917–1918). An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works.

(London: Hogarth Press, 1955, 1956. Pp. xxxi + 335; xi + 303. £36 per set of 24 vols.; sold only in sets.)

Vol. II is a very interesting addition to the series. The translation by James and Alix Strachey is completely new and is based on the 1925 German edition. It includes, however, the contributions by Breuer omitted from the latter, viz. the case history of Fräulein Anna O, During whose treatment the therapeutic value of catharsis under hypnosis first became apparent, and an essay on the nature of hysteria and its psychology.

Of the four sections of the book, Part I, 'On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: Preliminary Communication' was written jointly by Breuer and Freud and published in 1893, two years before the full book. Part II gives 'Case Histories', Breuer's Fräulein Anna O. and four of Freud's patients. Part III is 'Theoretical' by Breuer; and Part IV 'The Psychotherapy of Hysteria', by Freud. The joint Preface to the first edition (1895) and the separate Prefaces to the second edition (1909) are all included. In the latter Prefaces, Breuer in effect disclaims all responsibility for developments since 1895 and Freud accurately describes the permanent value of the book: 'The attentive reader will be able to detect in the present book the germs of all that has since been added to the theory of catharsis: for instance, the part played by psychosexual factors and infantilism, the importance of dreams and of unconscious symbolism. And I can give no better advice to anyone interested in the development of catharsis into psycho-analysis than to begin with Studies on Hysteria and thus follow the path which I myself have trodden.' There are two Appendices: A, 'The Chronology of the Case of Frau Emmy von N.' details the ambiguities in the various texts which make this chronology somewhat uncertain; t