50th Anniversary of Freud's Death

23 September 1989 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the founder of psychoanalysis. James Strachey, our distinguished predecessor as Editor, was able to mark the original event by reporting Freud's death along with a photograph and the first publication in English of 'An Outline of Psycho-analysis'. To honour Freud fifty years later we thought we should try to follow Strachey's lead albeit that there are even less unpublished Freud writings than fifty years ago. We were, therefore, fortunate to have to hand Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi's paper on his research into Moses and Monotheism in the course of which he discovered Freud's own unpublished introduction to that work which is now presented for the first time. This is followed by some reviews written by Freud, translated here for the first time and presented by Mark Solms. We are also publishing two photographs (by courtesy of the Freud Museum), one of Freud at the entrance to his first house in London and another of him as a young man surrounded by his family.

The issue of the Journal (vol 21 part 1) in which Strachey commemorated Freud's death also contained a notice under the heading Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) written by Ernest Jones and beginning with the sentence 'Freud is dead'. In a wide-ranging appreciation of Freud's contribution to mankind Jones turned at the last to ask in what way the event of his death would influence the future course of psychoanalysis. He wrote 'Freud himself was of the opinion, which he more than once expressed to me, that his death would have a beneficial effect inasmuch as various resistances that had accumulated about his personality would then have the opportunity of dispersing'. Jones distinguished those analysts (fortunately a small group, wrote Jones) who would seek for no other criterion of truth than the fact of Freud having stated it, those (unfortunately not a small group) who differ just to assert independence and those (Jones would not estimate how many) wh