The tradition of linking the concepts of psychoanalysis and sexuality with literature was established by Freud when he borrowed from Sophocles the name for the most famous of his discoveries, the oedipus complex. Freud turned to the great masterworks of literature not only because he believed that they contained profound psychological truths but also because at that time little clinical material existed in the scientific literature with which to illustrate his evolving theoretical concepts.

In this book Norman Kiell attempts a synthesis of the stages of psychosexual development and literature. He systematically describes the principles of the psychology of sex and illustrates them with fictional passages. In doing so he avoids both literary pornography and the clinical drabness often prevalent in the scientific literature. The sexual phenomena are illustrated by the fictional work of over one hundred and fifty authors from the Apocrypha and Chaucer through Rabelais to Mailer and Vidal.