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Wilhelm Stekel died on June 27, 1940. In his lifetime, he was often blamed for his lack of organization, documentation and consistency. It would make little sense to repeat that reproach five years after his death. However, one may express astonishment that an opus from his pen announcing new ideas on dream psychology and reaching the book market so long after his decease, does not contain the author's literary remains but reprints of papers published many years ago. None of the fifteen chapters was written after 1935, many of them in 1913 and 1914. It is therefore safe to presume that the contents of this two-volume edition are known to all experts.
In a certain sense Stekel represents a tragic figure in the history of psychoanalysis. He never understood why Freud and his pupils rejected him so violently despite the fact that his name was connected with a number of psychoanalytic discoveries, particularly in the field of dream interpretation. When told that he was superficial, he replied that his books were long enough, that they would grow into libraries should he undertake to interpret dreams more