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. VI (1901). The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1960. Pp. xiv + 310. £50 the set of 24 vols.; sold only in sets.)

The welcome appearance of The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which is Vol. VI of the Standard Edition, nearly completes the series from Vol. II to Vol. XIV. Since Vol. I will contain only pre-analytic publications and unpublished drafts, and Vol. III only early analytic publications, this means that an authoritative, indeed a definitive, translation of the major and most important part of Freud's published work from 1893 to 1916 is now available in English. This period was summarized by Freud himself in A History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, which appears in Vol. XIV of the series. The completion of so much of the task represents an outstanding achievement on which the Editor and his collaborators and assistants are to be most sincerely congratulated.

In contrast to the last volume published in the series, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, Vol. VIII, a work that was scarcely altered by Freud after its first appearance in 1905, Freud made numerous additions to this book, mostly in the form of extra illustrations, etc. However, all the basic theory is present in the earliest editions. The Editor remarks: 'Only one other of Freud's works, the Introductory Lectures (1916–17), rivals this one in the number of German editions it has passed through and the number of foreign languages into which it has been translated.' Brill's translation even appeared in Penguin Books as early as 1939.

The Standard Edition translation is an entirely new one by Alan Tyson; it is felicitous and flows easily. The task presented even more of the same kind of difficulty as is found in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, that is the numerous, totally untranslatable, plays upon words. In the interests of the accuracy demanded by a Standard Edition, the difficulties have been met in the same way as in the translation of the previous volume, i.e., 'by the pedestrian method of giving the original German phrases and explaining their point with the help of square bra