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This collection of the letters of James and Alix Strachey will capture the interest of students of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, not only because of the Strachey's historical significance as the translators of the English Standard Edition of Freud's complete works, but also because of its insights into the personalities of early figures in psychoanalysis as well as into the sociocultural milieus of Berlin and London in the 1920s. Shortly after their marriage in 1920, this brilliant but troubled young couple from the highly advantaged aristocratic world of Cambridge and the fashionable society of Bloomsbury, journeyed to Vienna where each was analyzed by Freud. Not too long after their analyses began, Freud asked James Strachey to translate some of his papers into English. Alix Strachey collaborated on some of these translations and the couple subsequently became the officially sanctioned translators of all of Freud's works.
They became, as well, psychoanalysts and principal figures in the British Psychoanalytic Society which had been founded several years earlier by Ernest Jones. James Strachey was Donald Winnicott's first analyst during a 10-year analysis and the author of an original and important paper on the curative role of mutative interpretations (made in light of transference). Alix Strachey later completed English translations of the works of Karl Abraham and Otto Fenichel, and during her stay in Berlin she cultivated an intimate friendship with Melanie Klein who, like Alix, was in analysis with Abraham. Alix translated all of Klein's first papers into English and helped her develop her first papers on child analysis. The Stracheys were instrumental in bringing Klein to London where she ultimately settled. This event set the stage both for the controversial
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