The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi. : Volume 1, 1908-1914. Edited by Eva Brabant, Ernst Falzeder, Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch, under supervision of André Haynal. Transcribed by Ingeborg Meyer-Palmedo. Translated by Peter T. Hoffer. Introduction by André Haynal. Cambridge, Mass. and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1993. Pp. 584.

This is surely the most important of all the correspondences bequeathed to us by Freud, by virtue both of its duration (twenty-five years) and of the exceptional quality of the relationship between the two correspondents. It covers every subject without exception. And, in the case of Ferenczi, without reserve too. As for Freud, reserve seems to have been a trait of his character: his whole nature bears its stamp, even where such a close friend as Ferenczi is concerned.

On 18 January 1908, a young Budapest neurologist, Sándor Ferenczi, wrote to Sigmund Freud, ‘whose teachings have occupied me incessantly for approximately a year’, requesting a meeting with him and his colleague, Dr Stein. Freud replied on 30 January, setting a time for the two Hungarian doctors to visit him on Sunday, 2 February. This was the beginning of a correspondence that continued for twenty-five years and comprised some 1250 communications, ranging from telegrams to letters of twelve pages or more.

Haynal describes in his introduction how the entire correspondence, consisting of both protagonists' letters, came into the hands of Balint. Having been charged by Gizella Ferenczi to publish it in its entirety, Balint was unable during his lifetime to secure the permissions necessary to bring this project to fruition. It was only after his death in the late 1980s, when none of the members of the two correspondents' immediate families was still alive, that full publication of the letters became possible. However, once all the obstacles had been eliminated, many preliminary operations remained to be carried out before work on the eventual edition could begin.

Balint had himself made a typewritten transcript of the letters, but this had to be carefully checked against the originals, in places corrected, and finally supplemented by a few subsequently discovered letters. Responsibility for this work was assumed by Meyer-Palmedo, who also contributed precious notes on the formal aspect of the letters wherev