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The reader of this unique volume can feast on a well-selected body of literature that highlights the evolution of psychoanalytic views that cluster around old and new controversies on female sexuality. Fifteen contemporary contributors each selected a classic paper believed to be generative on the subject of female sexuality and gender issues. Each of the 15 offer a commentary, a substantive essay in its own right, that introduces the classic selected, reexamines it from a contemporary point of view, and “maps out the contributor's specific stepping-stones, from transmission of the inherited work to her or his now-generative reading” (p. xi). On my reading, 15 classical muses inspired 15 contemporary writers to do one fine job.
Donna Bassin, the editor of this series, expresses an abiding faith in the generative power of classics, “which are living histories and remain dynamic as long as readers become writers from them” (p. xiii). The contributors and their thoughtfully selected classics do not disappoint. This gripping and fascinating volume conveys an appreciation of the history of ideas on its subject and should generate among its readers ever more new and communicable ideas. In writing this review, I imagined myself in a position similar to that of the 15 contributors. This very book took on the proportions of a classic-to-be and certainly inspired in me new and, I hope, communicable ideas that form the substance of this review. Unlike many edited books, this one is an integrated, creative, consistent, and coherent whole. I had the options of focusing on the contemporary, the