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(a) German Editions:
1899 Mschr. Psychiat. Neurol., 6 (3), 215-30. (September.)
1925 G.S., 1, 465-88.
(b) English Translation:
‘Screen Memories’
1950 C.P., 5, 47-69. (Tr. James Strachey.)
The present translation is a slightly revised reprint of that published in 1950.
An unpublished letter of Freud's to Fliess of May 25, 1899, tells him that on that date this paper was sent in to the editor of the periodical in which it appeared later in the year. He adds that he was immensely pleased by it during its production, which he takes as a bad omen for its future fate.
The concept of ‘screen memories’ was here introduced by Freud for the first time. It was no doubt brought into focus by his consideration of the particular instance which occupies the major part of the paper and which had been alluded to in a letter to Fliess of January 3, 1899 (Letter 101). Nevertheless the topic was closely related to several others which had been occupying his mind for many months previously—in fact ever since he had embarked on his self-analysis in the summer of 1897—problems concerning the operation of memory and its distortions, the importance and raison d'être of phantasies, the amnesia covering our early years, and, behind all this, infantile sexuality. Readers of the Fliess letters will find many approaches to the present discussion. See, for instance, the remarks on phantasies in Draft M of May 25, 1897 and in Letter 66 of July 7, 1897. The screen memories analysed by Freud at the end of