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Within the past two decades, research on Freud has mainly focused on biography with special emphasis on the potentially sensationalistic aspects of Freud's life. There has also been a tendency to give this Freud-literature a crass and “debunking” bias which has only to a very small extent afforded Freud the benefit of the doubt. In the course of this process, the person of Freud has come into the foreground at the expense of his texts. The author's intention with this book is to try to counteract this tendency, which she interprets as a kind of cultural defence mechanism against having to confront the revolutionizing insights of psychoanalysis. Concentrating on the person of Freud may according to Grubrich-Simitis, function as a distraction and divert the attention from the study of the texts.
Back to Freud's Texts is divided into three parts. In part one, the story behind the publications of Freud's works is told, from the early days of the first publications until the present time. In part two, Freud's creativity is illustrated through the study of his notes, drafts, manuscripts, and other archive material to which the author was given access in the Freud Archives in the Library of Congress in Washington. In part three, suggestions and problems are outlined with regard to the publication of new editions of Freud's works.
In part one, History of the Editions, the story is told about the psychoanalytic journals and the psychoanalytic publishing house. It also describes Freud's dealings with other publishers in the days before a special publishing house for psychoanalytic literature had been established. This story starts of course in Vienna, the centre of psychoanalytic publications until 1938, then it moves to London with Freud's emigration there in 1938 and finally it ends up in Frankfurt from 1960 until today. Grubrich-Simitis was herself employed at the S. Fisher Verlag and was responsible for the Freud-editions in Frankfurt. This fact enables her of course to