Front Matter

This volume completes the trilogy of my account of Freud's life and work.

Freud retained his stature to the end. Two features in particular exemplified it during this last phase of his life. One was the truly astonishing fresh outburst of original ideas he produced in those years, just when it was thought he had rounded off his life's work. They effected a revolution in both the theory and the practice of psycho-analysis, and they furnished stimuli which are still bringing about fruitful results. The other was the dauntless fortitude with which he endured the political and financial dangers that threatened to engulf both him and his work, the loss of several of those dear to him, and above all the cruel tortures of the many years of suffering from the devouring cancer that ultimately killed him.

I cannot agree with those biographers who write as if their subject had no body or only one that functioned so perfectly as not to be worth mentioning. On the contrary, I am sure that the relation between body and mind constitutes an important part of the whole personality, and I have therefore not pandered to the squeamishness of any readers by omitting some account, however brief, of Freud's bodily misfortunes. The extract from the surgical notes in the Appendix is of course intended only for medical readers of an unusual clinical case.

It would be invidious to select any period when Freud's mental powers could be said to be at their highest level, but one might perhaps suggest that different aspects of those powers were more prominent at one time and others at another. There was the tireless concentration of the patient investigator in the first period, then the astounding courage of the pioneer that broke through barriers that had for centuries baulked the best thinkers, the critical judgement and wide range of his most prolific period in the years of maturity, followed by the bold imaginative visions of the final period—the