Preface (1994) to The Freud/Jung Letters: The Correspondence Between Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung

Since this translation of the Freud/Jung letters was published in 1974, the critical and hermeneutic literature on the correspondence, emanating from Freudian, Jungian, eclectic, and unclassifiable writers, has been copious. Furthermore, new information on aspects of the correspondence has come to light, and there have been bibliographical developments.

Also in 1974, but following the publication of the English translation, the original German text of the correspondence became available.1 Wolfgang Sauerlánder (1911-1977), as coeditor, translated and adapted the editorial apparatus and contributed a preface discussing the special considerations of establishing the German text. Sauerlánder, a valuable consultant for the English-language edition, was an associate of both Pantheon Books and the Bollingen Foundation.

An abridged version of the correspondence, prepared by the British psychologist Alan McGlashan, has subsequently been published.2

References in the letters to the Russian psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein, little known in 1974 though obviously of emotional and doctrinal importance for Freud and in particular for Jung, could be annotated only sparely in the original editions. The discovery in 1977 in Geneva of a collection of Spielrein's papers, including her partial diary and letters to and from the two masters, threw new light not only on the woman but on her relationship with both men. The Jungian analyst Aldo Carotenuto published the diary and letters (except for Jung's to Spielrein, proscribed by the Jung heirs), with a commentary, as Diario di una segreta simmetria;3 the book was translated as A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Spielrein Between Jung and Freud,4 with a foreword by the present writer. Meanwhile, new biographical information about Spielrein