Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890 edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1998,  xix + 430 pp., $85.00; $19.95 paper

Although Freud liked to present himself as working, from 1896 to 1902, in “splendid isolation” (1914, p. 22), scholars such as Ellenberger (1970) and Sulloway (1983) have helped us to see numerous affiliations of Freud's thought with that of his predecessors. Reading through the selections in this fine (though disappointingly annotated) anthology, one finds numerous anticipations of Freud's views on unconscious mental processes, sexuality, and dreams, among others. In few instances can there be any question of direct influence (some continental texts important in Britain are included, e.g., Haeckel on ontogeny and phylogeny, and Weismann on germ plasm, both of which were also important to Freud). Certain ideas enjoyed a wide European diffusion despite their local inflections and uses. Moreover, some of the texts reveal a Freud in the rear-guard of contemporary thought. For example, James Paget in 1875 wrote, “Now, I believe that you may teach positively that masturbation does neither more nor less harm than sexual